Can you call SPSite on a different machine to SharePoint setup?

Question

I'm trying to call SharePoint from within a standard .NET class library. This will probably be hosted on a different server to SharePoint.

I just need to return an item from a list, and wondered if I needed to use the Client framework or if something like below would work:

using (SPSite site = new SPSite("http://sitecollection"))
{
  using (SPWeb web = site.RootWeb)
  {
    SPList list = web.Lists["Image List"];

    // Get item by name field value
  }
}

I'm currently just referencing the Microsoft.SharePoint.dll

Answer 1

No, this is not supported.

You need to use the web services or the Client Side Object Model (CSOM)

Answer 2

You need to use the Client Framework to instantiate an SPSite on another farm.

The reason being, is that when you instantiate SPSite, the server running the code looks into it's own farm configuration to find out what content database to get the data from.

If you're on FarmA and want to instantiate a site collection that exists in FarmB, you will get a FileNotFoundException, because that site collection only exists within a web application that is in FarmB's configuration database.