I am looking to host a small site for some video content. I konw some C# and ASP.NET so this would be my lanugage of choice.
Question is, if I can build it all using express . free editions of VS, SQL Server and IIS, am I allowed to publish this on the internet for people to view? Not making profit, just my own music performances. I dont need to worry about buying a commercial edition?
Thanks.
John
Absolutely! The community addition is more than capable to meet your needs. You could even host the site for free on Azure if you wanted:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/pricing-offers/
Although the database hosting would cost unless you used a file based database like SQLite.
Related
I'm looking into developing single deployment applications, traditional desktop applications with simple database(s) embedded. By my understanding Microsoft have removed support for MSSQL Compact Edition in the newer versions of Visual Studio.
I've read that the approach recommended by them is to use the Express version of MSSQL, however I'm failing to understand how an application with an Express SQL database embedded in it would be able to run on a machine without the SQL service installed and running.
Am I missing something here? I've hunted around Google for the last few hours, is the only solution to use a 3rd party technology like SQLite?
Looking to help a customer migrate their Sharepoint to Azure along with a lot of their other virtual workloads. I'd rather not use the Office 365 Sharepoint product. Rather host Sharepoint on IaaS and either the supporting SQL Server on a BYOL/IaaS VM or use the managed Azure SQL (if possible). I can't seem to locate that certification information and would also be interested in anyone's experience.
Hosting SharePoint databases on SQL Azure is not officially supported but this Microsoft blog post shows it is possible. It is not supported because SQL Azure cannot guarantee 1 ms latency required by SharePoint as explained on the article. If you don’t like SharePoint online then you should install all SharePoint servers on Azure VMs.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Alberto Morillo
This is great question (I have no idea why did he get a negative points), and I would like to give an updated answer (for today) even so it is an old thread from a year ago, since we have new features today. It is important to mention that the answer today is probably YES (you can use it for most cases), although it is still not officially documented/supported.
First, let me repeat what I said that officially it is still not supported, but probably only because no one documented it yet and you should test it.
In the blog that Alberto mentioned (it is from 2015) Sam Betts says that you should make sure the region of the Azure SQL Database is the same as your SharePoint servers region in order to avoid latency. In 2015 that was the only recommendation, since you had no control over the vNet of your Azure SQL Database.
On February 2018 Microsoft announced the general availability of Virtual Network (VNet) Service Endpoints for Azure SQL Database in all Azure regions. In addition we have a new deployment option for Azure SQL Databases As A Service today named "Managed Instance", which also allows us to control the vNet and to create for example Virtual Machines (and other elements) which use the same vNet.
If you want to use Azure SQL (PaaS) for SharePoint hosted in Microsoft Azure, you should make sure that you are working under the same region and under the same vNet. Without fully familiar with your system I cannot give direct absolute answer like YES or NO, and You should test the system but probably for most cases it should fit.
I've signed up into Oracle Application Express for my school education purposes (I need free Oracle db hosting). I am developing web application which I would like to be coonected to db which Oracle given me with App Express. My problem is that I don't know where to get connection string for this db or if it is even possible to get.
Thank you very much :)
Regards, bakua
If I understand your question, you're trying to use the database provided at apex.oracle.com as just a standard Oracle db and build your own independent web app using that as the backend db? If so, you can't. The apex.oracle.com setup is designed purely for learning and experimenting with apex.
This is confirmed here
https://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=905176
If I understood your question!
I'm not aware of any free Oracle hosting other than downloading free versions from Oracle and hosting on your own computer.
I have a client that runs a small business. They need a custom database solution and I'm looking into various options. My experience is limited to .NET using local SQL Servers (no ASP.NET), however, this client is non-technical and would benefit from being able to outsource the DBA tasks. I'm a complete Azure noob, I just scanned the tutorials and they all appear targeted at developing MVC ASP solutions. The client doesn't need a browser based solution. A fat desktop client used from different geographical offices would be the least expensive option I can deliver. I'm just trying to save some time going through all the tutorials and docs only to find out that this isn't what SQL Azure is intended to do. In effect my questions boil down to:
Can I develop a C#/.NET WPF desktop application using Entity Framework 4 and have it hit SQL Azure instead of a local SQL Server?
Are there any known gotchas with EF4 and SQL Azure?
Are there other hidden development costs/complications in using SQL-Azure instead of a local SQL Server.
Is the basic tool support the same? One specific example I can think of; do I get a SQL profiler tool for troubleshooting?
The final question is security related and I'm not sophisticated enough to ask a good question, but is hitting a SQL Azure db this way considered a security no no?
Yes, you can, but a more suitable approach would be to use WCF Data Services or another form of web services (asmx or WCF) as a services layer for your application. I like this approach for line of business applications. I hate web apps for line of business and by using a services connected WPF desktop application, you get the benefits of running in the cloud and having a cloud offering without the necessity to be HTML based.
SQL Azure has full support for EF these days. In the past there were some issues, but I have not encountered any these days.
In terms of development costs and complications - the Azure desktop hosted environment is a bit of a PITA from a development perspective, but I haven't had major problems. You lose the ability to share a local DEV SQL Server unless you use a hosted instance....of course there's a development cost in that because you have to pay for usage.
Good point! SQL Azure does not provide SQL Profiler support at present. I personally use the built in EF tracing support for this functionality.
Exposing a SQL Azure DB directly isn't a good idea from a security perspective. That's why I suggest hitting a WCF Data Services (or other web services) endpoint in point 1.
You can develop a desktop or on-premise application that uses SQL Azure for your database.
You need to take the standard Azure precautions - assume that connection failures will occur and ensure that your application has retry logic to restore operation. Also note that SQL Azure will terminate any operations that take longer than a minute, to preserve the service for other users. If you have lots of data and some nasty queries, that might be relevant.
EF works fine with SQL Azure. There are some limitations to SQL Azure, itself, which you can read about from the documentation on Microsoft's web site. If you design you database for Azure, it'll work fine on SQL Server or SQL Express (but not necessarily the other way around).
In addition to the monthly charge for the database, you will pay for data that leaves the data centre. Design your application carefully to minimise the amount of data that is retrieved from the database. You no longer have to pay for data going into the data centre, which helps.
You can still use SQL Management Studio and Data Connections within Visual Studio. No SQL Profiler, though. There are a few irritating things you can't do with Management Studio, but nothing insurmountable.
You will have to open up firewall rules for access to the database, but hopefully, they'll be limited. Authentication is by SQL Server credentials, not integrated authentication.
I wouldn't tend to do it this way, but it works.
Which version of SQL Server I would need to purchase in order to be able to legally include in a web app I am going to package? In other words, I need to be able to build it into the package along with the app so when it is loaded on the users machine, they have a local db available.
To date I've only worked with Sql db's on a server. Now I want to package stand alone db's with application. I want to avoid using Access.
The only version you can embed in your own application distribution is SQL Server Express, which is free. For all other versions your clients have to purchase a license. You cannot transfer your license to your clients. You can however become a reseller and sell them the required license along with the application, as Andrew suggests. For more details see SQL Server 2008 Pricing.
You'll want your users to install SQL Server Express - it's what MS provides as the solution for this exact problem.
If your app requires more than Express can offer, your clients will need to purchase SQL Server. If this is an Access-scale application then that isn't likely.
Are you doing custom software for individual clients? If so, then consider becoming a reseller of MS licenses. That way you can profit on the sale of the licenses to your customers, in addition to the consulting fees for software development. (For instance, if you develop an intranet app, you can probably sell a Windows Server 2008, SQL Server and maybe Sharepoint license..)
You don't really say a lot about what your requirements are or what environment/language this web app is written in. I'm guessing this is Microsoft SQL Server you're asking about, so I would guess that SQL Express would be enough for most cases. If this is asp.net, you could even put the data files in the App_Data folder.
If you're just looking for a free sql database there are many: SQLite as Valentin suggested, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Firebird, etc.