newbie questions on setting up ASP site 3

[imarosel]

I have about 8 months or so worth of experience enhancing a database driven ASP website using vbscript. I inherieted a running site that lives on a company server. I have been approached by a small business to stand up a small database driven website for them. I would love to take on this project, but I have realized I know nothing about actually setting up and hosting the site. Would somebody please guide me to a valuable resource or provide me some input. I'm having a little trouble getting the information I need by googling around (too much junk out there). Here are my main questions.

What components do I need to set this up? I feel I need IIS and either MYSQL or Enterprise Manager. I've been doing development in Ultra Edit, but I believe my work might be easier with a development platform like ASP.net? Microsoft says ASP.net is free but that doesn't sound like Microsoft so I must be missing something, which leads me to my next question.

Where are the costs? My guess is I purchase IIS, database software (if i don't use MySQL) and pay a hosting company?

Any questions I haven't asked that I should be asking?

 

[monksnake]

You can check to see if you have IIS available, by (in Windows) going to your control panel - add/remove programs -add/remove Windows Components.

See if IIS is in that list. If you have a Windows professional product, I expect it's there.

Assuming you have IIS, you can look through it and see that it's not very hard to set up a web server.

ASP.NET should come free with IIS.

And a hosting company is not expensive at all nowdays. I think they can start from as little as $10 a year.

I wish I could help you more, I gave you what I know.

<.

 

[damber]

but I believe my work might be easier with a development platform like ASP.net?

First, let's clear up the fact that ASP.NET has very little in common with ASP. If you are currently using one or the other, and don't want a steep learning curve either way, stick with it for this website - otherwise you'll end up not delivering anything because you were so busy learning how to Response.Write("hello world") etc - if you want to change in the future, then learn it in your own time

I have been approached by a small business to stand up a small database driven website for them.

If this is a small business with an expectation of small usage volumes on the website, then you can select a less expensive solution.

There are 4 types of hosting you can choose from:

1. Shared Hosting: The cheapest, but least performant, as you will share the same machine as lots of other users/sites. You will essentially get an ftp account to upload pages, and everything else will have been setup for you with a control panel so you can configure things.. however there is minimal access to the server itself, and you will find it difficult to install anything they don't have, unless you ask them very nicely, or pay extra - most home user websites use this, but so do many small businesses.

2. Virtual Dedicated Hosting: This is where you get what appears to be a real server that you can log into using remote desktop, and install, administer etc etc. Really this is a Virtual Server (e.g. vmware, SWSoft etc) running on a physical server - and you'll typically share it with 3 to 7 others, but sometimes more, depending on the size of servers and the options you choose. this is more expensive, but gives you more control. there's more opportunity for you to break the server here though.

3. Dedicated hosting: this is where you 'rent' an entire physical server in a datacentre, so you get better performance and have a little more control over it's operation. The server normally comes installed with an OS of your choice and various applications you select. You can more easily mess things up if you're not sure how it works

4. Co-Location/Managed Hosting: Essentially, you provide the server, the hosting provider hosts and manages the hardware and provides the network access. This is usually one of the most expensive, and requires that you understand how the whole system fits together.. you have to do everything yourself, which gives you great control, but you need to know what you're doing.

What components do I need to set this up?

For ASP you need IIS - it will be provided on options 1-3 as standard if you select Windows as the operating system (you should for this - ASP is not well supported beyond Windows without extra costs) - so there is no additional costs beyond that of the hosting account

For a database you need to choose which database you require.

If you use a shared hosting platform, you are likely not going to have much choice - for windows, it is usually Access DB's, MS SQL Server (at extra cost) or MySQL (though much less common). This will be charged for in the hosting account, so check out what people offer.

If you have a server you can install on, you have a wider selection: MySQL, SQL Server Express, DB2 Express-C, Oracle Express are all FREE (with some usage limitations that aren't likely to affect a small site). But you will need to install them yourself in most cases.

You can of course purchase their bigger brothers, but you aren't likely to need to for a small site.

so.. it comes down to which technology you want to use, which is likely to be the one you've used to date.

Summary:
shared hosting - it's all done for you, just sign-up, upload your pages and configure the db (there are several free SQL Server clients available)
virtual/dedicated hosting - more performance, but you need to install and configure the database yourself (the OS, and therefore IIS, will already be done for you) - you'll usually be able to opt for a control panel with these services which will make configuration easier

so.. the hosting is going to be your cost, here are my recommendations:

Shared: IX Webhosting
Virtual Dedicated: Go Daddy
Dedicated: Go Daddy

hope that helps, good luck

A smile is worth a thousand kind words. So smile, it's easy!

 

[imarosel]

Great thanks. The posts above hit the nail on the head. I defintely do not want to maintain a physical server myself so hosting is the way to go.

So it sounds like if I go with a windows based hosting I can expect to pay nothing extra for IIS, but for a db I will either have to a)find somebody willing to let me install mysql or b) purchase MS SQL Server (or something similar ) and install/have it installed.

When I maintained a website (I've changed jobs) I would just write/edit .asp pages that contained java/vbscript/html with a text editor. Is that all I would need to do with the IIS/DB solution discussed above or am I missing something else I would need to install?

Thanks for the help.

 

[damber]

When I maintained a website (I've changed jobs) I would just write/edit .asp pages that contained java/vbscript/html with a text editor. Is that all I would need to do with the IIS/DB solution discussed above or am I missing something else I would need to install?

pretty much. You'll need to create and manage the db - e.g. run DDL SQL etc - there are free clients (like Enterprise Manager) that you can connect to the server with. With some shared hosting providers, SQL Server will come with the package - check out the first link I provided - they include SQL SErver with their windows packages.

A smile is worth a thousand kind words. So smile, it's easy!

 

[imarosel]

Thanks again. I'm sure I'll have more questions later.

 

[johnwm]

I have a number of my sites hosted on Yeti Hosting (

http://www.yetihost.com/)

who do a very reasonably priced package for shared hosting. Their standard Windows package includes ASP or ASP.NET, PHP and free MySQL accounts, plus several other add-on application packs if you want to do CMS, blogs or a forum

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[Microbe]

hmmm...as someone who started with ASP a few years ago and then defected to PHP/mySQL I would suggest that route even with your year or so of experience with ASP.

I am not trying to start a flame war but my experience is that PHP is easier to program, much cheaper to get hosted and easier to manage.

I know it is hard "starting again" but I don't regret it one bit and am slowly rewriting all my ASP sites as PHP. Now THAT is a tedious job

Steve Davis

http://www.HaHaHa.com.au/weblog

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[imarosel]

Well I've looked around some and went ahead with IXWebhosting suggested by damber. After a couple of hours of playing around I was able to create an ASP page that would display data from an MYSQL database. I haven't tackled the emailer yet. After some reflection and googling around I've decided to go ahead and come up to the next level. I switched the platform from windows to Linux and i'm going to try and do this in php, so thanks for that advice microbe, you are what got that rolling around in my head.

Thanks for the advice, look for me in the php forums.


p.s. damber thanks for recommending IXWebhosting, their customer support is the most amazing I have ever seen.