when our product was initially designed, the point of sale, database and
everything else resided on one server.  to handle security on the point of
sale i used impersonation to change the thread principle when a user logged
in and then database and code security was very straight forward from there.

of course requirements have changed and now we need to have multiple points
of sale completely separate from the database server etc.  what are some
options I have to scale this system?  although i've done alot of .net
programming, i dont know much about doing user authentication across a
network etc.  will i need to move from xp to server 2003 for this and can
you do impersonation still?   just looking for a push in the right
direction, thanks :)

Lloyd Christopher
SLOW30

Can you provide more information as to what the network looks like?
Windows with AD, IIS, SQL Server? All located where? (db server,
application server, clients). Are we talking about a Win forms or web
app? If it's a web app, what kind of authentication does it currently
use? Windows, Forms, Passport?

windows with sql server.  no AD currently though i'm guessing i'll need to
do that.  still early design phase for this new requirement hence i'm trying
to scope it out while its still flexible.  db server and application server
will be same machine, then various clients all over.  its a windows forms
application, currently  using windows authentication for the different users
with impersonation.  i've been looking at sspi/remoting, i found a 2part
series of really good articles on msdn that could well be what i'm after,
but figured i'd also see what people use in the real world.
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/programming/networking/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dndotnet/html/remsspi.asp
and
http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/programming/networking/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dndotnet/html/remsec.asp
if anyone is interested)

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