Development question for Port-Forwarding

Hi guys, my apologies if this question has been asked before but upon doing a lot of research on it I didn't find it.

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Here's my question, I'm working on a pure java app with which clients need to set up a VM with a SQL server on it (on a separate machine than the ones who use the client app) to use with the client app for the whole thing to be functional.

Essentially, they use the client app for document archiving and upon completion it gets sent to the VM sql server and gets stored in a database accessible by all the local client apps within their network.

Now I've been tasked to do a web app that will permit the users to do searches for documents that are currently stored in the SQL server vm, the problem is everything's local to each company that has the app.

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Here's my take on this based on my research (If I'm way off please let me know, any form of help will be appreciated)

One way to handle this would be a web app (technology doesn't matter) to be set up online with port-forwarding.

I was thinking of having URL's set up for the various clients such as www.myapp.com/client1 so the re-direction will work and reach the local SQL server VM for them to have access to the database and all of its goodies.

Is this a good way or are there more effective ways of handling this ?

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