How to get Web Application and DB Server High Availibility - asp.net

I have a Web application made in ASP.NET and MS SQL 2005 as database
ASP.NET Web App is hosted on : http://192.168.0.90
and MS SQL Server DB on : 192.168.0.91
User use url : http://192.168.0.91 to access the server.
MY DR IP address for Web App http://192.168.0.150 and Database is : 192.168.0.151
Suppose my Web Server Fails. i need to Automatically divert user to my Web Application DR Server IP
same with DB Server.
without user knowing it ? how can i do it...
Waiting for your earliest revert.
Regards
Hasnain
preferred is the process should be automatic

For the web application use DNS instead like myapp.domain.com and assign two IPs (A records) to it. It will be working as round-robin load balancing and when one server will crash, it will direct you to the another one. This is the simplest yet quite effective method providing some extra availability, assuming you have session in external database or you are using clustered storage.
Also, when one of your webservers is not available, you can dynamically remove it's IP from the DNS, and this DNS A record should have 300 seconds TTL.

Related

How to "host" SQL Server when deploying an ASP.Net site on the web

I'm about to deploy an ASP.NET web application for testing in production. Essentially, this is just a table that is linked to a SQL Server table/view that is obviously dynamic when the data in the tables are updated.
I have a hosting plan with a site that I'll be pushing the files to, which includes a SQL Server database in the hosting plan. I also host a SQL Server instance on the network.
My question is, what is the standard way of dealing with SQL Server in this deployment? I think I have the options below, but as someone who has only ever developed applications offline, this is new to me, so please excuse my novice ignorance.
Have the application connect via IP address in the connection string to my SQL Server instance, as specifying the server name (SQLDEVSRV01 for example) won't be on the "network" when it's sitting in the site's FTP. Am I to assume my connection string will only work on the network, and once deployed to a website, will cease to function unless connecting via TCP/IP?
Host the server on the web in the same site host location. So upload the site files to my website host and setup the SQL server there. Would I be able to just specify the Server name (SQLDEVSRV01 for example) in the connection string there, as whilst it wouldn't work in development as it wouldn't be on the same network, it would then work once deployed on the web?
Embed a SQL Server instance within the app using localdB or something similar to hold the background data. If this is the case, can the data be accessed from the backend, either using SSMS or some other method?
Essentially, my aim here is to have the web app retrieve the data live from a view/table hosted in SQL server, where the backend data can be amended, manipulated and updated independently of the app, so the app can just pull the data when refreshed.
The standard way of doing this is to deploy your database to the hosting providers SQL Server instance and then connect your app to it using a connection string with their details. As it is normally a shared instance you do not have to normally worry about having the SQL instance machine patched etc.
Personally I would not be installing SQL Server myself unless I decided there was benefit to having an instance I wanted the control over nor would I be changing the structure or implementation of my application to suit a hosting providers setup.

How to publish an asp.net website on work network?

I have been developing an ASP.NET application and I would like my work colleagues to give me feedback on it. I tried running it on IIS but because the database is located on a remote server, I am unable to host it properly?
Also, how can the colleagues access that site? my host name, etc
You can update your connection string to your remote server (providing the DB accepts external requests).
Something like (assuming SQL)
Data Source=190.190.200.100,1433;Network Library=DBMSSOCN;Initial Catalog=myDataBase; User ID=myUsername;Password=myPassword;
It's an ugly hack, but you can do an if else statement, detect the DomainName (Environment.UserDomainName()) and if matches the server then use one connection string, if it's your office's domain, then use that!
This means, you can still use your local IIS!
You can publish your web site on a local server which has IIS running on it. You can create your application on IIS and your colleagues can access your web site from the intranet via the name of the server easily.
Such as:
http://servername/yourprojectdirectory
And also the local server should have internet access for the remote database.

Error 40 in SQL Server

I have a website in Asp.net that I have installed on my server, and my website's database in SQL Server 2008 R2. My website has pages that contain ActiveX components. When I run my website on the server the ActiveX components are working correctly, but there is a problem when I run website from client.
The pages that do not contain ActiveX components work correctly and I can get and insert data from database. In the pages that contain ActiveX components it gives me SQL Server error number 40, that it could not open the connection.
Can anyone help me resolve this?
As Steve B implies in his comment the problem lies in the ActiveX component making a call to the database directly. The connection string in your app specifies a connection made from the Web server to the Database server. These connections work because your firewall settings allow for inbound connections to the Database server from that Web server. When the connection is set in the ActiveX control to connect directly to the Database, you are getting connection failures because the firewall is blocking the inbound connections from the clients running the ActiveX component. The fix is to redesign your application so the ActiveX component that lives on the client machine no longer makes calls directly against the database; make use of web services or something of that nature. If the clients are all internal to the domain (aka this is a private app and will never be public facing), chances are the Firewall isn't properly configured to allow internal connections to the database server.

SQL Server Session State, web farm, and counting the sessions

I have 2 load balanced web servers. My application is using the SQL Server Session State database on SQL Server 2008.
The 2 web servers are identical in terms of IIS configuration, and if I understand correctly, the two web apps on the two servers will be mapped to the same app id in the ASPStateTempApplications table since they have the same IIS configuration. So, counting the number of sessions associated with this app Id (from the ASPStateTempSessions tabel) will result in the total count of sessions on the two web servers together.
My questions is:
Is there a way to know how many sessions are active on each server individually?
I have the problem that when I take one server out of the load balance, I want to know if there are still any active sessions on the server or not before recycling it.
Another scenario, if I have to recycle the IIS on one of the servers because another web app on the same server is crashing, I would like to know how many sessions will be affected when I do so.
Thanks.
Basically, they all may and actually SHOULD be active on both ) Because in this mode sessions are not bound to the web-servers at all.
You can stick each user to a single server with load-balancing techniques on your gateway and if so - better to use InProc mode with all its benefits )
Since the session data is stored in SQL Server, you shouldn't have to worry about how many sessions are active. Once the server is shutdown (or IIS is recycled, depending on the configuration), the load balancer will automatically send any new requests to the active IIS server. With the session data stored in SQL, the active server can retrieve the session data and the user will be unaware that any server switching has occured.
Ideally, you should test this procedure periodically to make sure everything is configured correctly. Also, you should follow this procedure when installing patches to the servers.

ASP.NET trusted DB connection to other server works in Casini, not in IIS

Our website connects to a database correctly when running the website locally using the built-in web server. But, when we deploy the site to our server running IIS, we get a database connection error. The database server is different from our IIS server. Note that a trusted connection to a different database on the SAME server as IIS works fine.
What do we need to do to connect to a SQL database on a different server with a trusted connection?
When you're running a web site using Cassini, the account used by the web server process is your own account that you use to log on to your Windows machine. That account will be different on IIS.
Consider the security implications of opening the database up to a broader access than you may need with trusted connection. Perhaps you could use Windows authentication with a service account. That is, create an application-specific user in SQL Server with limited permissions. Then, you will get the benefits of connection pooling while avoiding passing credentials.
I'd check the user account that app domain in IIS is using to connect to SQL Server. The account in IIS may not have access to network resources as well which would explain the trouble reaching the other database server.
Sounds like you need to configure the database server to provide access to the database you're trying to connect to.
Assuming SQL Server, log into SQL Server Enterprise Manager and under Security -> Logins, open the properties for the applicable user (probably the Network Service or ASP.NET account of the web server) and go to the Database Access tab and ensure that the Permit checkbox is ticked for the database you are connecting to.

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