Dual operating system setup I need advice regarding my plans for a Linux/Windows web development project.

My employers have 2 windows servers - one hosts their non-drupal CMS and the other hosts the website database.
My job is to transition their website to Drupal - that's the easy part. So, I will be shutting down the server hosting the current website.

The hard part is using two separate servers for the site and the database - something I've never done before.

I plan on using a Linux server for the Drupal development but I need to know how to do the following:


use a remote database  
use SQL Server on a Windows IIS machine
Remote database

To use a remote database, you just have to supply the IP/URL of your remote server instead of 'localhost' during install or in sites/default/settings.php file.

SQL Server

There's a module for SQL Server : Drupal 7 driver for SQL Server and SQL Azure.

And installation instructions are available on the module page.