Design Suggestions

I am creating an applet based Help Desk Tracking system for my department. I have a Web Server where I will be hosting the applet and will also maintain the Database on the Web Server.
The Database must be able to be accessed from anywhere inside my company. Therefore I need to be able to access it via UNC or IP through the ODBC.
I would prefer to use an SQL database, prefereably MySQL.
I also want to keep this project as much JAVA as possible. Meaning no XML, CGI, etc.
My initial plan was to use JDBC to connect to an MS Access DB through the ODBC but this failed because Access is a client/client database and I need a Server/Client database.
I know how to use the JDBC API so that is not a problem.
I would appreciate any hints, ideas, suggestions for this project.
Should I use RMI instead of JDBC and keep the DB manipulation completely local to the Server or is JDBC the way to go on this.
Also, if anyone knows how to Register MySQL as a Server with the system so that is shows up in the available Servers list in the ODBC, that would be grealty appreciated as well.
Thanks for any help.

You might want to consider keeping all of the database access code on the middle, or server tier. This way it will be self contained and should be easier to administer and maintain.
You could communicate with your server using RMI. I'm not sure I understand your question about RMI vs JDBC. Even if you use RMI you will still need JDBC to communicate with your DB, so it doesn't seem like an 'either/or' situation, but maybe I'm missing something.

"Barrett",
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Thanks.
Dave