Accessing data in SQL Server 2008 from an Android application

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Java

SQL-Server

Mobile

MySQL

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I'm new to Android development and have certain issue which is troubling me a lot, and worse is I haven't found the answer to it yet.

Requirement:

1.) I'm developing Android app using eclipse as my base IDE. I have my data safely residing in SQLserver 2008. I don't want to use SQLite/MySql.

2.)Requirement here says, on a button click the application should talk to the SQLServer 2008 database, fetch data from it and list the data in the view.

Is that possible?? If no then queries below this line are invalid.

Problem:

I tried to google it up providing queries like "Android and sqlserver connectivity",
"extracting data from sqlserver in Android" and ended up getting answers like below and I'm
losing track here.

1.) Some show it using a php scripting for My Sql but i'm using java and SQL Server 2008. I'm not getting the link here.

2.) Some just say we have to use a Web Service to do it. I tried understanding that but none of the examples showed implementing a web service and using it. They just made a call to online available Web Service using KSoap to add 2 numbers.

Query:

Is Web Service the only way in Android to communicate with a DB? If yes then how can i approach it. Can anyone guide me as to

1.) How to create a web service in Android application and call it from java code.

2.) How to talk to SQLServer 2008 DB from the webservice and fetch back the data.

Any help is deeply appreciated, Thanks to all.