I know there are a few technical people on here so I thought I’d ask this question here.

Scenario:

Two offices, A and B, in separate buildings. There is already a server in office A and a separate server in office B. Now there is a database on office A’s server that needs to be accessed by office B. What would be the safest, yet cost effective way, of sorting this out. The database will need to be accessed from a number of workstations in both office A and B.

Also what would be the best way of doing this if neither office currently had a server. i.e starting from scratch.

Thanks
Andy.

What DBMS are the two servers running? If you're running MS-SQL you can 'link servers' quite easily. Here is an article which should give you a good idea on how to do it.

If you had no servers and needed to find a solution to your problem it would make sense to move to a single server rather than have 2 separate ones (especially since you need to share information between them). Moving to one server would save in running costs, should reduce maintenance issues (less parts to go wrong), simplify backup solutions and reduce the burden on your sys admin, freeing up his/her time for other jobs. Plus it would save on your enterprise warranty costs!

The above assumes you have a reliable, high speed datalink between the 2 buildings.

edit: Here is the second part of the above article.

Vpn?

Eh? Shouldn't Active Directory be sorting this out for you?

The two sites need to be configured in the AD Schema and then the database service on the server in the other office will be set up as an AD object that any client on the networks should be able to find via the Domain Servers.

For info on Active Directory look HERE and HERE