SQL Server data transfer and receipt question

[WebDevGuy]

The application I am building needs to be able to:
- automatically receive data from third parties
- send data to third parties and wait to receive feedback from those third paries then integrate that recevied data into the database

Is that DTS capability or is that more of an XML application issue?

[asterix]

MSSQL can do this in several ways, DTS especially:

1) Send: Use FTP from DTS
2) Send: Use Push Replication
3) Send: Actually, pull, publish the data to a websit using IIS Virtual Directory for SQL Server

Also you can write an extended stored procedure to manage whatever application you like, then schedule that to run using the Job Scheduler.

More commonly, however, people would program a web service to publish the application interface and hide the database implementation from 3rd parties.

HTH