I would like to create and archive a collection of demo ASP.NET web form applications that show projects with certain features in the sense "this feature can be implemented like this" -- to be presented to a potential customer.
Before the presentation, I would like to get the selected set of demo and install them easily to the notebook. Each of the demos will be "frozen". The target notebook is not the customer's one. It is one of our ones that is bring to the customer for the presentation. This way, it can be prepared in the sense that a named MS SQL instance with the fixed name can be ready, etc.
Can you share some experience with such situation? (I do not want to have marked this question as of opinionated; so please, if you have some explicit links to the related documents or explicit suggestions...)
Here are some other facts and initial ideas:
Each of the demo projects uses two databases: xxx_users (the standard ASP.NET authentication...), and xxx_application (and possibly xxx_external) where xxx is a prefix for the specific project.
The demo application is expected to be compiled (binary only, no sources needed for the presentation).
The Web.config files can use the local\SQLINSTANCEFORDEMOS in connection strings.
The SQL instance has a fixed name, fixed administrator account (like sa) and fixed password for the logging to the SQL instance. This way, it can be included in the Web.config files.
The sample data can be fairly big (not extremely tiny).
The application will use its own SQL tables in the xxx_application database.
The application will simulate the outer database that is accessed from the web application can be simulated by xxx_external database.
This way, I should be able to create and archive SQL backups of xxx_users, xxx_application, and xxx_external databases, plus the archive of the web app binary.
Have you ever encountered this situation? Is the approach reasonable? Could you share some better ideas?
I am about to work on an LOB application for my customer. The asp.net web application has to be hosted on their on-premise Sharepoint server. In the past, I have created data entry forms using Infopath and designed workflows using Sharepoint designer tool but I have limited amount of experience on sharepoint development.
Project requirement:
1. An input screen for the users to enter data that will be stored in a data store such as SQL Server?
2. A dashboard to indicate the status of their submitted requests.
3. Application has to be hosted on Sharepoint server (on-premise at the moment). But I would like to know what if at later point, they decide to move it to Office 365 (cloud)? Will it be easier to migrate the application including any workflows that are created?
What I need advise on? Here are some of my questions:
Data store (SQL Server vs Sharepoint list) - Which one is better? For a typical LOB application such as this one, will it make sense to store the data in SQL Server or Sharepoint list?
Performance - Will it overtime degrade the performance of the application if the data is stored in Sharepoint list instead of SQL Server? What would be an ideal choice? Is Sharepoint list used as a data store for some very specific scenarios only and what are those scenarios? Amount of this application’s data is expected to grow as the time goes by. Probably, say there will be almost 30000 records added each month and may be more later?
Security - Is Sharepoint list a secure option for storing data? I know that a sharepoint admin can provide access to a sharepoint list if anyone desires that would enable people to modify the structure of the list or mess up with the data through sharepoint.
As i have limited experience on sharepoint, I need advise on whether to use list or SQL Server to store the data.
If your LOB Application has complex structure like tables with very relations and two or more linked table by relation , SharePoint will got you in trouble.
If you like to make summary report from all tables with complex join , it's better to use SQL Server.
Simple answer is SharePoint development with multiple linked tables is hard and software maintenance is hard too.
Performance: SharePoint list with very large of data (above 500000 record) will be slow depend on hardware on server performance , But you can use large list patterns if you like this url Link.
SharePoint list security architecture is very well, and there is know any concern for this subject and each type of security pattern can apply to data.
I am recently working with a relational database program that has been written in Excel VBA. Excel VBA was chosen as it is a default application on computers where I work and therefore everyone would be able to use the database.
As part of the database development the need has arisen to add some more tables which will only interact programmatically with the current database. In order to consider all my options I am contemplating separating this new data either as an SQLite or second excel file.
I keep changing my mind as to what would be the best route and would appreciate information from those who work with the programs.
The new database would need to perform normal database functions quickly and efficiently. Given this context what are the advantages/disadvantages of using SQLite compared with excel?
Excel is not a database! If you want to use the Office applications, use Access, it is designed for that.
If you want to use SQLite, bear in mind that there is no concurrency. So if PC1 writes to the database, and PC2 wants to do that too, the file is locked by PC1 and you will get an error on PC2.
My recommendation:
You can also install SQL Server Express, this is free, with a few terms (10 concurrent users & max 10GB db). And then store your data in your SQL server. Use Excel as an interface to collect data from the SQL Server in your Excel/VBA applications. This is a lot more scale-able then Access, let alone SQLite.
OR: If your organization doesn't allow installation of software or whatever reason, go for Access.
You can use SQLite if you have a single application on a single device. Think about mobile apps, they use SQLite for example. If you have two applications on a single device, the concurrency problem of SQLite comes around the corner. It is possible that both apps want to write at the same time, which will give you an error.
I have a web site I developed for displaying the results of some data analysis work I did. It relied on ASP.NET for the front end and connected to a MySQL back end utilising Entity Framework and LINQ extensively.
I chose MySQL because I personally have used it in the past and like the database, but this resulted in some serious issues when I had to deploy it to a hosting provider (incompatible connectors, access rights, etc.)
I am now getting ready to redevelop and expand the site and I am looking for some advice to avoid the issues I had last time.
The new DB has to serve two roles. The first is to be a data provider for the charts that are the output of the analysis work. These tables are straightforward, almost flat files, with 10 tables. One table has roughly 200k rows of data the rest have aprox 1200 rows of data each. There are little references or queries between the DB tables, but there are a few. This data is updated periodically by a back end process and does not need to be added to or edited by the user.
The second role of the DB would be as a basic persistent store for a standard user management system. It would need to manage data for adding/ removing clients, user names, passwords, access rights. etc. No financial data or super secure data is involved.
What database approach would you recommend that would give me easy deployment and management at a web host and still allow me to use both Entity Framework and LINQ effectively.
Second, what tools/frameworks should I consider as I rewrite this system. It is very graphical and data focused. Presentation of charts and information is the key factor in this site. Are there any new technologies or frameworks that would add specific value to what I am doing?
A few notes. I am a one man shop and I maintain the entire system myself so I am less worried about enterprise level frameworks than other people. My focus is on the easy development and deployment of the site. Maintainability is also a key factor.
I am also an experienced C# developer, but new to ASP.NET and the web side of things. The first version of this site was a big learning experience. It was good, but I wasted an enormous amount of time on just understanding new technologies and approaches. I am very open to learning, but I can't afford the time to get my head around a complete paradigm shift.
I am looking forward to your thoughts, thanks.
Doug
The natural choice would be SQL Server. I'd guess by your description that you are way under the maximum space limit of the SQL Server Express edition. I of course supports Entity Framework and the drivers are part of the .NET Framework, so no problem with third party assemblies here.
This will also open up the possibility to host your app in the cloud (Azure) later on, because SQL Azure in fact is a Microsoft SQL Server, so there is no overhead in supporting that.
Regarding user management - ASP.NET has this all build in (Membership, Role and Profile provider) and also a SQL Provider for which default tables are available. So you don't have to design your tables by yourself and it runs very naturally on SQL Server.
I have three different applications, they all share the ASP.NET membership aspect of the database and almost definitely they won't share anything else.
Should I have a separate database for each of the applications, or would one suffice?
All the application tables are prefixed, so that wouldn't be a problem in integration. Although I was wondering if there would be any performance issues, or if having all three applications share the same database would be some kind of grave mistake.
The applications in question are three web applications, the "main site", a forum and a bug tracker. I'm wondering if this is viable because integration could be easier if I had a single database. For instance, the bug tracker registers asp.net membership tables in it's db connection, and it even creates an "admin" user, where the db that is actually supposed to be holding the membership tables would be the "main site" one.
Update: I added a bounty to this question since the answers seem to have pretty split opinions about whether I should or not use multiple databases for different applications that share only membership providers.
Separate apps = separate databases - unless you have to "squeeze" everything into a single DB (e.g. on a shared web hoster).
Separate databases can be backed up (and restored!) separately.
Separate databases can be distributed onto other servers when needed.
Separate databases can be tweaked individually.
I have always found it would be better to have more databases so that it is easier to:
Migrate to more servers if needed
Manage security / access easier
Easier (and Faster) restores and backups
I would actually go with four databases. A Membership database, and then one for each application (if the membership is truly shared). This will allow you to lock security across applications as well.
Looking at your question closer... You say that the data would "likely not be shared"... will a lot of your queries be joining tables with the membership? If so, might be easier if they are in the same database. However if you are going with a more entity based approach, I would think you would still be better with multiple databases. You might even want to look at something like an LDAP database or some other type of caching for your membership database to speed things up.
You should use the same database unless you have a current need to place them in separate databases - HOWEVER where possible you should architect your system so that you could move the data into a separate database should the need arise.
In practise this means that you should keep SQL procedures working the smallest amount of data possible - i.e. Don't have multi-step stored procs which do lots of separate actions. Have separate usps and call each from code.
Reasons to use separate databases:
1) Unrelated data - Group data that is interrelated - andonce databases get beyond a certain complexity, look to separate out blocks of related data into separate databases in order to simplify.
2) Data that is of either higher importance (e.g. Personal Details) should be separated to allow for greater security measures: e.g. screening this data from developers
3) or lower importance (e.g. Logging Info) - this probably does not need backing up - and if it's particularly volumous, you probably don't want it increasing the time taken to back up the main site database.
4) Used by applications living on different servers at different locations. Quite obviously you want to site data as close as possible to the consuming application.
Without really knowing the size and scale of your system, difficult to give full opinion, if it's just your own site, one db may work for now - if it's commercial then i'd have 4 dbs from the word go: Membership details, Forum, Bug Tracker and MainSite related stuff.
Thus in code you would have a Membership manager which only talks to the Membership db, A BugManager, A ForumManager and anything else will only talk to the MainSite db. I can't think of any reason you'd need any of these databases talking to each other.
Just my inclination: although the three apps might not share much (not yet, anyway: but what happens when a forum post wants to reference a bug report?), they all belong to the same "system," so to speak.
I would definitely put all of the tables in just one database.
In my opinion , it is better to split the database for increased flexibility, security, efficiency, and scalability.
In future if there is any addition of requirement (you never know) which is common to all the three applications , it might be a little difficult to maintain.
For example: User login /audit trace for your 3 applications.
It may sound like I'm wandering a bit, but have you taken into account another possibility, that is separating all the authentication/membership functionality into an application itself?
From your description it seems you may add another application in the future. It would start to look like a network of sites, much like 37signals web apps, Google web apps or MSN web apps.
And thus, you may go for a kind of Single-Sign-On / Connect service. This one single application may offer authentication methods via web-services or any other mechanisms, it will have its own DB for you to tweak, modify, backup and move without affecting the other apps. I myself have found this situation many times and thus I love how easy is to share your Google or Facebook login among applications.
Perhaps I'm seeing it from a little higher perspective than yours, sorry if it's the case. If this is not an option, you may keep 4 databases: 1 for each application and 1 for the membership provider, which has its own connectionstring most of the time.
Of course it depends on the size of your applications' footprint on DB-level. 10 tables per app is OK, 150 tables per app would make the DB a little ugly to us, that being a personal preference.
Good luck with whatever option you choose.
The membership framework allows for partitioning across multiple applications, so you probably should have the following configuration:
Membership Database
Application 1 Database
Application 2 Database
Application 3 Database
Then, in each of the application databases, create synonyms that point to the membership database's tables for when you need to write your own queries that access both application data and membership data. Synonyms are easy to maintain and allow you change where the database is without changing any dependencies on those tables as the synonym names don't change.
Your application configuration in Web.config will determine how the data is partitioned in the membership database as you specify an ApplicationName that should be different for each app.