How do I have my app connect to a remote SQL Server that has port 1433 closed?

From: Alan Silver (alan-silver_at_nospam.thanx)
Date: 03/21/05 

Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 15:20:25 +0000

Hello,

I have a few applications that connect directly to a remote SQL Server,
mainly (but not only) so that web site owners can update the databases
that run their web sites.

The people that maintain the web/SQL server have now said (quite
sensibly) that they want to close port 1433 as it is a security risk. I
would like to know how my client applications are supposed to interact
with the SQL Server if they don't use port 1433. The ISP told me that
this server is the only one they have that has the port open, but they
wouldn't tell me how to do the data access - well, they would, but they
want consultancy rates for it!!

So, anyone any suggestions? The ISP's only suggestion was to have a
private ASP on one of the web sites, that you send the connection
details and SQL, and it returns a recordset as XML. The client
applications could open the recordset from the URL. They did say that
they would put Windows security on the page, so anyone trying to get at
it would need a UID and password, and that the actual URL should be
encoded in the client application so no-one would ever know it exists,
but it still sounds like a major security hole to me. I'm sure there are
better ways of doing this.

I'm sure plenty of people have found a secure way around this, but my
searches haven't turned up anything helpful.

Anyone any suggestions? TIA. 

-- 
Alan Silver
(anything added below this line is nothing to do with me)

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