Best way to link to a remote SQL server

[Vai]

Within our internal network we have a CRM system with lots of client data on it (SQL Server 2005)
Our website is hosted in a data centre (Server 2003/IIS), we have another server up there running SQL 2000 which could be used.
We want to use the client data in the CRM database in the client area of the website.

I am not sure of the best way to go about this, in fact I get the feeling it may discouraged for security reasons.

Just opening up port 1433 would be bad, I doubt it would be encrypted and it would probably have poor performance.
The database is 1.5Gb so SFTP'ing it up there periodically wouldn't be suitable, and it would be nice to have reasonably live data, as well as the ability to update the main database.

Is there something in SQL server that can keep a copy of the database on each server and (securely) update each other if changes are made?

 

[Vai]

The connection is over the internet. We only have a 2mb leased line (upgrading soon hopefully), though the number of updates to the database shouldn't tax that. There isn't currently a VPN connecting with them as we just use RDP for administering the servers.

It sounds like it would require a VPN to ensure the data was kept safe though.

If there isn't a good solution at the SQL server level is there another way to go about it? I could create some web services which are hosted in our DMZ that the ASP.NET pages talk to for verifying users and retrieving data that would be used on the site, the web services could be made to run over SSL and require authentication to keep everything secure.
However would that be a licensing problem as our internal SQL2005 server uses CAL licensing not processor licenses?

If a mod could move this to Servers and Enterprise Solutions it would be much appreciated