Centralized ConnectionString manager

Have you checked out the .NET encrypted configuration files feature (first introduced with 2.0)?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998280.aspx

(This says ASP.NET but it can be done in any .NET app)

I have a C# client that uses a WCF service to get all connection information.  The connection strings are stored in a secure SQL Database that only the DBA's and WCF service has access to.  To get the information you connect to the service and request the string needed by Key name.

They have a Service for Production, Dev, and Test.  The only thing carried in the .config files is the correct path and TCP address to the net_tcp service.

We have been considering a setup like this, but I was wondering how you set up the Service to be highly-available?  The purpose behind the service we were trying to set up was for disaster recovery as well as security.  Maybe I am missing something I can do in C#/VB.net to set this up (or possibly a clustered/mirrored web server?)

I have created a set of centralized connection tables and procedures that sit on a clustered SQL Server.  All the data is encrypted by the built in SQL server encryption mechanism.  I then have created stored procedures to insert and retrieve data out of these tables which handle the decryption and encryption of data.  The tables also keep track of the type of connection and the platform that the system is on, example Unix  ftp server, iSeries FTP server, SQL Server Login.

Kevin: You don't need a service, nor do you need to worry about high availability.  Use the built-in configuration file encryption (see the link I posted), and then all you need to worry about is pushing updated files out when needed.  All of the servers will manage their own connections at that point.  It couldn't be easier, and assuming that all of your servers are .NET there is no reason to over-engineer something like this.