Need guidance for a client/server system (programmed using visual basic)
I'm programming a small client-server system that will be used in a small office of up to 10 computers on the same network. The server computer stores a database, and I'm writing a program to go on the server to be in charge of communicating with the database, and also communicating with the client programs installed on each other computer.
The client programs will often request data from the database which the server software will send back to the client software. Also the server software will need to message the client software with certain events happening etc. So basically I need to program a communication system between a server program connected to several instances of a client program. Various messages will need to be passed backwards and forwards and also database data will need to be sent backwards and forwards.
I would really appreciate suggestions on what classes etc I'd use to do this and any helpful pointers.. quick and simple is ideal if it's possible. How would I send database data? Would I put the data I want to send in xml and send xml data between the programs? Again, how would I do this? Are there .NET Framework classes that make all this easy? I'll be using ADO.NET 2 to handle communication with the database.
I'm using Visual Basic 2005 Express to program this system in.
I've never written client-server programs before and am struggling a little finding the best way to go about all this.
Many thanks for any help and suggestions you can give!
Sam
