Unless I missed something here, there is nothing in the statement of the problem which states that the database must reside on the server. The real problem is that you want to connect to a database through an applet and Java security must be setup to allow the applet access to the db. How to set the security up is problematic because apparently neither netscape nor ie support this functionality and you must use some java plug-in. As to the plug-in, I have no experience with it, but am not sure if I want to chance kill my IE installation by installing it.