webhosting for dotnet applications
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I have a potential USA-based client, a small business, that has a need for a web application. Their application will have roughly 50 users, essentially a server for small files. I'm researching hosts that are stable, have good support, are easy to deal with, and relatively inexpensive. Can I get recommendations? Thanks! [Yeah, I know I'm asking for the sun, the moon, and the stars -- and will probably have to settle for something less. :-D ]
Smarterasp.net. Been using it for several clients for years now. Very affordable, easy to use and decent support.
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Step 0 : Roll your own. Step 1 : Profit.
I do that. I offer Plesk based webhosting with not too many restrictions. One .com-Domain included, from $30 each year. Service includes user level ssh-access, custom dns-settings and much more. Just send me a PM and we may talk about it.
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I have a potential USA-based client, a small business, that has a need for a web application. Their application will have roughly 50 users, essentially a server for small files. I'm researching hosts that are stable, have good support, are easy to deal with, and relatively inexpensive. Can I get recommendations? Thanks! [Yeah, I know I'm asking for the sun, the moon, and the stars -- and will probably have to settle for something less. :-D ]
I also use SmarterAsp.net. I use webhostforasp.net as a secondary provider. I received free package deals for both and have kept them around because why get rid of free, but that was back when they were just starting out. I have had good luck with both of them. Easy control panels, easy to load sites and fairly easy to manage. I would recommend you look at Azure as well. I wouldn't look in any other direction if you are using a .net application as you will probably have too many problems maintaining everything. That is my practical experience, anyway. The problem I have with all of the Cloud solutions is the true hidden cost. If you purchase a hosting account through one of the providers above, you get x space, with y sites, with z databases and everything is spelled out. The last time I looked at Cloud solutions you get some of the same but some of the billing is based on usage volume, number of Mbytes written to the disk or along the lan etc. Before recommending either or choosing a direction, I would see if you could get a true hard fixed, per month cost. That may help. Your client isn't going to care about "if I use this much volume in March, it costs $100, if I use this much volume in April it will cost $200", they are just going to be pissed when their bill doubles. Plus, I have a golden rule that I always use for applications, and that is they will always grow. If you are only using a little bit now, give it a couple years and that will be significantly larger.
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I do that. I offer Plesk based webhosting with not too many restrictions. One .com-Domain included, from $30 each year. Service includes user level ssh-access, custom dns-settings and much more. Just send me a PM and we may talk about it.
Thanks, but I'm not interested in running the hosting. Just looking for a setup for customers which is stable, easy to use (for them), and hassle free (for me).
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BryanFazekas wrote:
The app is not a robust one, it simply collects information from a single source and serves the information out to customers each day.
Heh. Sounds like it could be implemented on an rPi sitting in the janitor's closet. Seriously, they don't need to know anything about hosting, sounds like all you need to do is set up a box for them that runs a web server, configure the router to for port 443, set up an SSL certificate and auto-renewal, register a domain, point it to their static IP, ... Ah, ok, I see your point. ;) Marc
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Marc Clifton wrote:
Seriously, they don't need to know anything about hosting, sounds like all you need to do is set up a box for them that runs a web server, configure the router to for port 443, set up an SSL certificate and auto-renewal, register a domain, point it to their static IP, ...
;P Yup! This could run on a PI3, probably a Pi Zero. For this client I don't think that's the best choice, but I'm keeping that in mind. I've got one of each (PI3, zero W) and need to play more with them.
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I just watched this [Build apps faster with Azure Serverless - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnJt4qfsfOc&MC=JavaScript&MC=Windows&MC=Vstudio&MC=MSAzure&MC=MobileDev) from the MSDN news letter, seems it may meet your requirements. I know a demo like that glosses over all the difficult bits but it may be worth investigating. I do note there is no discussion of cost :~
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
Thanks! I was thinking of Azure ... but cost is an issue, so I need to check that. This is for one client, but I'm also thinking longer range for other small clients.
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I know is a long shot. But .netcore runs in Linux. You might want to look into Digital Ocean. I did some early development with aspnet core 1.0 and it was fast and responsive with a Debian droplet. All experimental. It was interesting.
Thanks for the suggestion, but I need stable, not experimental. A Raspberry PI was suggested up stream, and THAT is an entertaining thought ... and dirt cheap for the client. But they need something reliable so some type of service is better for everyone. However, some time down the road when I've had a chance to experiment with my PI's ... I may choose otherwise.
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I also use SmarterAsp.net. I use webhostforasp.net as a secondary provider. I received free package deals for both and have kept them around because why get rid of free, but that was back when they were just starting out. I have had good luck with both of them. Easy control panels, easy to load sites and fairly easy to manage. I would recommend you look at Azure as well. I wouldn't look in any other direction if you are using a .net application as you will probably have too many problems maintaining everything. That is my practical experience, anyway. The problem I have with all of the Cloud solutions is the true hidden cost. If you purchase a hosting account through one of the providers above, you get x space, with y sites, with z databases and everything is spelled out. The last time I looked at Cloud solutions you get some of the same but some of the billing is based on usage volume, number of Mbytes written to the disk or along the lan etc. Before recommending either or choosing a direction, I would see if you could get a true hard fixed, per month cost. That may help. Your client isn't going to care about "if I use this much volume in March, it costs $100, if I use this much volume in April it will cost $200", they are just going to be pissed when their bill doubles. Plus, I have a golden rule that I always use for applications, and that is they will always grow. If you are only using a little bit now, give it a couple years and that will be significantly larger.
nightsoul94 wrote:
The problem I have with all of the Cloud solutions is the true hidden cost.
YUP! Costs are a driver, but hidden costs are a more dangerous point in general. I'm thinking of not only hosting costs, but my time to manage anything they can't (which appears likely). I expect the client will be willing to pay a bit more for stable service that doesn't cost them for my time -- which will be cheaper for them. [Plus I long ago lost interest in waking up at 2 AM to handle a production problem. :laugh: ]
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I have a potential USA-based client, a small business, that has a need for a web application. Their application will have roughly 50 users, essentially a server for small files. I'm researching hosts that are stable, have good support, are easy to deal with, and relatively inexpensive. Can I get recommendations? Thanks! [Yeah, I know I'm asking for the sun, the moon, and the stars -- and will probably have to settle for something less. :-D ]
Thanks for all the suggestions! I have some research to do ....
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I have a potential USA-based client, a small business, that has a need for a web application. Their application will have roughly 50 users, essentially a server for small files. I'm researching hosts that are stable, have good support, are easy to deal with, and relatively inexpensive. Can I get recommendations? Thanks! [Yeah, I know I'm asking for the sun, the moon, and the stars -- and will probably have to settle for something less. :-D ]
Try Linode.com - you can get a small VPS for $5 /month and can also create high-available and load balancing if you have 2 or more.
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I also use SmarterAsp.net. I use webhostforasp.net as a secondary provider. I received free package deals for both and have kept them around because why get rid of free, but that was back when they were just starting out. I have had good luck with both of them. Easy control panels, easy to load sites and fairly easy to manage. I would recommend you look at Azure as well. I wouldn't look in any other direction if you are using a .net application as you will probably have too many problems maintaining everything. That is my practical experience, anyway. The problem I have with all of the Cloud solutions is the true hidden cost. If you purchase a hosting account through one of the providers above, you get x space, with y sites, with z databases and everything is spelled out. The last time I looked at Cloud solutions you get some of the same but some of the billing is based on usage volume, number of Mbytes written to the disk or along the lan etc. Before recommending either or choosing a direction, I would see if you could get a true hard fixed, per month cost. That may help. Your client isn't going to care about "if I use this much volume in March, it costs $100, if I use this much volume in April it will cost $200", they are just going to be pissed when their bill doubles. Plus, I have a golden rule that I always use for applications, and that is they will always grow. If you are only using a little bit now, give it a couple years and that will be significantly larger.
I have some "business card" sites that are hosted on SmarterAsp / MyWindowsHosting as the price is right. They do have a IIS Application Sleep that is a little slow to respond which I took care of by setting up a Pingdom account to hit the site every 5 minutes. I use to use CrystalTech without issue, actually preferred them but they started bumping up their prices and getting out of shared hosting.
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Thanks, but I'm not interested in running the hosting. Just looking for a setup for customers which is stable, easy to use (for them), and hassle free (for me).
Yes, that's exactly what you'd get. There's a demo account to try it out: https://cumulu.org:8443/ Username: demo Password: showcase
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I have a potential USA-based client, a small business, that has a need for a web application. Their application will have roughly 50 users, essentially a server for small files. I'm researching hosts that are stable, have good support, are easy to deal with, and relatively inexpensive. Can I get recommendations? Thanks! [Yeah, I know I'm asking for the sun, the moon, and the stars -- and will probably have to settle for something less. :-D ]
Azure offers a free tier for hosting, using their app hosting service. No need for deploying server, just deploy your .net app right to azure. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/app-service/
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Thanks! I was thinking of Azure ... but cost is an issue, so I need to check that. This is for one client, but I'm also thinking longer range for other small clients.
Assessing the cost of that service seems to be a major challenge.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH