where to host small .net website with sql server ? any advice ?

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jxharding

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hi, anyone hosting .net websites with sql server anywhere?
any pitfalls you can recommend me watching out for?
ive only done inhouse stuff before, this is the first time something that ive written is going public and i honestly dont know what to expect

at this point, im planning to send them the code and the DB hoping they can put it together and then the plan is to login to the admin section and upload new files and db scripts
am i missing the point here?

any advice would help thanks
 
You are looking at a Windows Based Host, due to the SQL and .Net site, so I would look in the direction of Afrihost and Webafrica, both have been in the game for years and know what they are doing.

You won't usually need to send your data to your hosting provider, since you will most likely receive a Control Panel where you can upload everything and "make" the connections from the DB to the Site.

Don't feel intimidated, it's quite an easy learning curve and within a day or two you will be sorted. First and last advice, backup. Don't forget it. Backup :)
 
jxharding said:
thanks teraside!
Click to expand...
Not a problem. Just remember the Linux based hosts will most likely supply MySQL, which won't help you.

I've been a client of WebAfrica for a few years (although dormant lately) and they've always been great, so give them a shout. Afrihost I've heard many good things about.
 
For the basic stuff that you are after, I agree with teraside, go with WA or Afrihost.

If you want to do custom stuff... Afrihost are a far better bet than WA. The peeps there are a whole lot more enthusiastic about helping you set stuff up (big up to Edward, hands down the best tech that's helped me there).

That being said... Afrihost had a big outage last week on their shared platform (which forced our hand, and we will be moving away from them to a dedicated machine with another host), and they c0ck up their application pools ALL the time, taking your site offline if you operate in .Net framework 4. I don't mean once or twice... but regularly. WA did the same when I was with them though, and worse... which is why I moved to Afrihost in the first place.

Of the two, I still prefer Afrihost's enthusiasm and willingness to help the little guy with stuff that is not run of the mill. In my opinion as a .Net dev, they are definitely better.

Both suck in terms of shared hosting reliability though... unfortunately.
 
Dm7 said:
Which host?
Click to expand...

Hetzner Germany. The machine came online last night, and so far I am astounded at what I can do with this thing. As developer I now have sooooo much flexibility. It's like developing in-house. I don't think I could touch shared hosting again after last night.

Problem is that this isn't for everyone. The op probably needs such a small amount of space and bandwidth that a dedicated machine makes no sense.
 
Afrihost, WA is still running old tech and old versions of SQLserver.. I had to move from them to afrihost..

But at the end of the day you should probably try to avoid MS tech for websites from a cost point of view.
 
greggpb said:
But at the end of the day you should probably try to avoid MS tech for websites from a cost point of view.
Click to expand...

Ugh, i'm of the other opinion (such is the internet I suppose, we all get to have our own opinions:P). A month or two back I had to install a cert on a linux box running apache etc. I had never installed a cert before, so this was all new territory for me. I had to do everything via the command prompt, search the interwebs for all sorts of command line instructions (most of them did not work on the configuration I apparently had), download a proggie called winSCP (after a suggestion from someone here... which literally saved my life - ok not quite, but close), create shadow copy folders or whatever they where. Do some <insert voodoo here>. All in all it took me several hours over a 2 day period. It was very de motivational.

On my new windows box I open IIS... click click, done.

In my opinion, the small extra cost of a MS box is SOOO worth it when you add up the time spent needing to learn new things.
 
jip its a difficult one for me
im capable with .net ,and have not written anything in recent times for other platforms
i however realised this shortcoming and tried using java for this application, but it took to long to try and figure out from scratch how this beast works, so i did it in .net again. honestly i still dont have a cooking clue with java once i open up eclipse, but ill have to make a plan.

seems like there are a myriad of hosting solutions and providers for everything except .net,and that options are limited when using .net ,prob due to
cost of SQL server etc etc.

thanks for all great advice on this thread!
 
jxharding said:
jip its a difficult one for me
im capable with .net ,and have not written anything in recent times for other platforms
i however realised this shortcoming and tried using java for this application, but it took to long to try and figure out from scratch how this beast works, so i did it in .net again. honestly i still dont have a cooking clue with java once i open up eclipse, but ill have to make a plan.

seems like there are a myriad of hosting solutions and providers for everything except .net,and that options are limited when using .net ,prob due to
cost of SQL server etc etc.

thanks for all great advice on this thread!
Click to expand...

If I was a .net dev I'd try appharbor the 1st instance is free or maybe brinkster

But I mainly use heroku for rails and python apps so I probably think that because Appharbor is the most similar product for .net out there.
 
Overseas hosts like Arvixe will give you the same price for a windows or linux shared server.
 
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