Website Safe Data Access Architecture Question

Question

I'd like to get some opinions on what I am planning to do is safe, safe from people hacking into data.

We have a database in city A. In city B we have a company that has an internal network, and a server that has two application servers on it that each run an application, App. 1 and App. 2.

App. 1 serves on port 80, and is exposed to the internet. I want App. 2 to only be exposed to App. 1, via web services(?), meaning people on the internet and intranet would not be able to "see" App. 2.

I want App. 2 to have a private communication link to the database in city A. I need to somehow ensure that the communication between App. 2 and the database in city A is secure, but I also need to have the data in App. 1.

Does this general set up accomplish what I need to do? My main objective is data security between App. 2 and the database in city A.

Any general recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks

Answer 1

There are multiple things that you can do to protect your data. I would look at using SSL over https, providing authentication for the caller of the web services (maybe a public/private key system or client certificates), and looking to set IP restriction rules for the caller on the hosting server - at a minimum.

Edit: For some reason I had thought you said an application accessing a web service, although you say application to application. Don't know if you are going to use web services, but that is the path we have followed.