Justin, You may be able to skirt the entire system architecture issue If helping your users find the right data is your primary concern. You should look into using the 'NPS Theme Manager for ArcGIS' from the National Park Service. It is an application that functions both in conjunction with ArcMap and as a stand alone program. I believe it was developed by the NPS, specifically for providing easy access to data sets without having to worry about complicated path directories and login portals. Furthermore, It allows you to group large numbers of datasets into logical categories, or 'themes', while providing simple drag-and-drop adding functionality to any ArcMap document. Plus, you can still implement all the usual database security settings behind the scenes without bogging down the end user. We use it at our office, and maintain an enterprise system with over 250 datasets on one database, with no problem.
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