Question: We're planning to use standard ASP.NET user authentication for our application. However, by default this requires us to have our user database on our web server in the App\_Data folder.

This is usually a **big** no-no for us - our databases are all behind the firewall and all access is done via a WCF Service layer.

If the database was on a different server, but directly accessible from the web server then this still vioates our usual architecture rules.

Should we worry about our user database living on our web server? Does ASP.NET offer an out-of-the-box alternative?

NOTE: We're using .NET 3.5 and SQL Server 2005

Answer: 
You can install the neccessary db tables etc. in any SQL Server database. 

Use the aspnet\_regsql.exe Wizard found in C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework....... to set up the target database.

Then simply update the connection strings in the provider configurations in the web.config.
Yes and Yes.

1. If you ever need to move to multiple web servers you shouldn't have the user data on one of those servers.
2. There are multiple was to do this, but check out this link for details on one [MSDN How To: Use Forms Authentication with SQL Server in ASP.NET 2.0](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998317.aspx)