ASP, JSP, WebServers on an intra net - Secure?

[thornnspear]

Ok, I'm trying to develop an app that interfaces with a MS Access databse for a company.

1) Data is secure client data
2) currently using a cumbersome system of forms in Access
3) ONLY NEED/WANT access via intranet
4) Want to use free dev tools, so was thinking ASP or JSP over VBA (I've had great suceess with ASP/ADO, see www.dyinglight.com/cpnidx.html)

So.... if I run PWS 4.0 or JRun (um, other JSP compatible free servers? Please tell!!!) on one machine, are the network admins at the company gonna flip b/c I'm running a web server?

Is the customer data still secure, ie no one can get in from internet? (all pcs are always-on invernet via network)

Otherwise I could get free hosting at, say, www.brinkster.com but there's the whole customer security issue again, plus not very convenient having the MDB file on the internet.

 

[Workin']

I'll try to answer at least a couple questions.

<< So.... if I run PWS 4.0 or JRun (um, other JSP compatible free servers? Please tell!!!) on one machine, are the network admins at the company gonna flip b/c I'm running a web server? >>

The net admins will probably freak out. Mostly just because they like to have control over everything.

<< Is the customer data still secure, ie no one can get in from internet? (all pcs are always-on invernet via network) >>

If all the machines including your little intranet webserver are behind the firewall and using non-routable IP addresses (i.e., 192.168.xxx.xxx) and port 80 is not being forwarded from the internet router to any of the local IP's then you are about as secure as you can be.

PWS and ASP/ADO would be a good way to do it for free. But I think the biggest issue will be getting the net admin to let this happen. Also, make sure that whoever is ultimately responsible for the safe keeping of the data (from a business point of view, not a network point of view - i.e., the person who will get fired first if the info "escapes") fully supports the plan.

 

[AmigaMan]

The jakarta project took over development of the work Sun did with JSPs. They offer a great open source Servlet/JSP engine called Tomcat. I believe it's at release 4.0.

Link

 

[thornnspear]

Ok, good to hear.

As for admins, yes, they love their little novell control fixes... I don't think they can detect it however, unless they have to fix the pc for something else. When I was in the company's dev group, they didn;t even realize how many web servers (and they were not PWS, but NT IIS) until they had to come in and reconfigure some of the PCs. They would never expect a web server to go up in the production areas....

If I remember, correctly, I may be able to get some space on one of those dev web servers, and that would make it nice and easy. OR I may be able to put the whole system on one standalone PC.

Well, Admins would freak if I had Visual Studio 6 on my "2nd Shift Supervisor" PC anyway and like I siad, Access forms just aren;t cutting it anymore.

I will check out the JSP server info - I think I even have a free SDK from Sun somewhere. I'm thinking I may have found a niche setting up intranet apps for small businesses using ASP/JSP and the browsers already installed on virually every PC....

 

[manly]

If you go with JSP, I think your data access is JDBC to ODBC to Access. Sounds nasty.

JRun bites, btw.

Tomcat is free and good. Caucho Resin is not exactly free, but very fast and good.