The Background:
Me and my colleague are opening a new website design & development company.
We have designed and implemented a website on Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 using Web forms in .NET Framework 4.
Because I was new to asp.NET at the time, I wasn't sure what Database to use. Therefore I created a new "Microsoft SQL Server Database File" and added all the tables etc.
I then worked with this configuration until the website was complete. The website works like a dream in Visual Studio.
The Problem:
We were supposed to be buying a server from a local source that cannot be named, and this server was supposed to have Microsoft SQL server 2005 for the database, and I'm assuming IIS to configure the server and handle requests etc (please keep in mind that my knowledge of servers is limited)
And this company were going to configure everything blah blah blah, get everything set up so all we have to do is put our website on it, and life is sweet.
The problem is, this company have messed us about, told us this and that and it turns out they're very unreliable and untrustworthy.
We've already spent a large sum of money with them and they are dragging their feet giving us the money back, saying what we asked is impossible, that we cant have SQL running on an old server yada yada yada.
The Question:
I have an asp.NET website with a SQL server database ( .mdf file, if that helps anything ) and we need to know what do we need to get it on the internet.
we've considered buying our own computer, putting MS server software on it, installing SQL server 2005, installing IIS and running it off that. But we don't know what to do or how to do it.
Before all this server hastle kicked off, i tried installing a copy of IIS on my computer, and hosting it from there as a test to get me used to the software, however I tried multiple tutorials, and all sorts and could not get our website to host!
There may be examples of this all over the internet but i cannot find an answer. I dont understand most of the things people are talking about on these articals.
I know I've rambled, But basically.
I just need to know HOW to put an asp.NET application on the internet, and what minimum requirements I need.
Do i even need SQL server software on my server? or is that purely for interacting with the sql database?
Best Answer
You shouldn't need SQL Server to put an ASP.NET application online. If your site requires database persistence, then yes, you'll need SQL Server installed, but not necessarily on the same server. If your requirements were that "we need to deploy a website", then there's no indication that SQL Server would be a requirement, and I would not expect them to give you access. Many hosts, such as http://discountasp.net, provide hosting for ASP.NET applications and SQL Server databases completely separately.
One solution that you DO have is to host your ASP.NET application on the server of this company (assuming you're still on speaking terms), and host your SQL Server database on another machine somewhere completely different - they don't have to be on the same machine. Your web.config file will let you change your connection string so you can have them separately.
I don't know the specifics of the conversation, but unless you tell them that you specifically need SQL Server (though most web applications do have a database of some kind and you can pretty well assume it's needed), hosting companies still reserve the right to give/sell SQL Server separately. If you have admin access to your hosting machine, I would suggest just installing SQL Server Express unless you need some of the more serious SQL features. Most of the time the reason hosts sell SQL Server databases/install separately is the EXTREMELY hefty license price tag of the the non-express version.
I hope this helps, and leave a comment if I need to go into more detail in a particular area.