Java – The cost of running a Windows App Server

Thanks for all your suggestions!

Finally I decided to go with the Mongoose stand-alone webserver which supports all kind of cgi plugins, including PHP. It's easily configurable and deployable and just fits my needs.

On my research I also found the UltiDev Web Server Pro, which was on the short list if I'd decided to go with .NET. Seems to be a nice product, but havn't worked with it yet, maybe it comes in handy for anyone who reads this.

The reason to go with PHP was that it requires a lot smaller footprint than .NET would have needed - in terms of files in the file system. I can put everything I need on the server side into one PHP file, no need for DLLs and other dependencies.

Cheers.

For ASP.NET web application, you can have several options:

1-Deploy on a user workstation - This is a bad solution for a serious application. You will get unpredictable performance, problems in debugging and possibly security issues, to name a few of the troubles.

2-Deploy the web server and database server both on a dedicated machine owned by the company - This is what I would go for. The hardware cost is not lost since the server can be re-used or shared by several applications. You can secure the box behind a firewall and configure it easily. You don't need to separate the database server from the web server. Administration can be conducted by current staff. I am not sure about the cost of the database in this scenario. Some databases may be free (mySQL?). I know that SQLServer Express is free (allows 5 concurrent users). Check on this before you calculate the total solution cost. Also other software cost must be factored in such as firewall, IIS, and the OS.

3-Deploy using a third party hosting company - Very affordable and not difficult to do but not all vendors accept their data to be outside the company. Ease of access to database and server will vary based on the hosting vendor. You will need good vendor support. The good thing here is you will not pay big for the database but you may pay a bit for storage, etc. In general the cost is very affordable.

4-Deploy on the cloud.

In your case, I would like to suggest that since you are new to web development in ASP, and if you don't have enough time, forget the web solution and build a desktop solution if all the employees are using Windows and are connected to the LAN when they use the system. You could also develop a Desktop application that uses a shared database using web services. Don't under estimate the learning curve for web development especially if interface quality is important. Building an application interface using HTML/CSS is not simple with the tools in the market today unless you are very good at this technology or have a front end developer who can help.