Sitecore more for corporate users? [closed] - licensing

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First, I've looked at every other stack site and I can't seem to find an very appropriate place to ask this. It's a pretty general questions, but basically, I'm wondering if Sitecore is targeted mainly at corporate users?
I've done a bit with Drupal and because it's open source of course you can install it on any shared host (at least LAMP but I guess Windows as well). I can't seem to find a lot of sites that advertize hosting for Sitecore other than the limited number on the SiteCore hosting site.
The only ones I see prices for tend to be WAY more than what you get from a shared host. IE, $100+ per month vs. ~$10-20 for your typical LAMP Shared host.
I'm about to get some Sitecore work at my company, and wondering if I'm going to be able to do any playing on my own with Sitecore outside of work, but it seems this is something you don't play with unless you have an actual license and host, unless there's some test environment one can set up on your local box, or is this not feasible?
As you can see, these are fairly basic questions, but I could not find good immediate answers to them while searching, so any good basic primer or info would be great!

Sitecore is an enterprise level web content management system (or Customer Engagement Platform as they call it).
The license fees vary per country and setup, but start at around $20k.
If you want to play with Sitecore as a developer, you can ask them for the Sitecore Xpress edition.
It's a free, limited release for developers.
You need to contact Sitecore and they will give it to you.

For non-commercial use you can use Sitecore Express. You'll have to contact Sitecore to get this.
This is a scaled back version though.
From their site:
Xpress is a version of Sitecore’s CMS that has been seriously scaled
back, but is ideal for developers wanting a no cost version and are OK
with the restrictions. While the enterprise scalability and
performance power has been pulled out, as well as the business
user/marketing capabilities, the developer flexibility remains.
I don't know about the cost of hosting it.

As the others have mentioned, there are ways to get the software without a license, but traditionally developers work with this with a license.
At that point, you do not need to worry about hosting, as long as you can run a .NET web application on your machine. Sitecore runs in IIS with SQL Server or Oracle databases. This allows you to do all your development and playing around on your local machine without needing to have it hosted.

In my experience, your best bet for short term hosting of Sitecore is a service like Amazon EC2. A service like this gives to access to remote server space where you can install Sitecore and all the extras you may need.
This sounds like a good fit in your case since you can start and stop the service whenever you need. This will allow you to play around with Sitecore without a large upfront investment. Also, you can always start up a new server instance whenever you need an outward facing site to show clients.

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Front end technologies for SAP S/4HANA [closed]

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My company are currently in the process of upgrading their existing ECC6 system to the latest S/4HANA version, and as a result, we'll be looking at developing bespoke Fiori apps once the upgrade is completed.
I read through a number of Fiori development resources online and it appears that a myriad of front-end frameworks can be used; we are not limited to SAPUI5.
Notably, there are several projects which utilise popular front-end development frameworks such as React - which are open sourced and come from SAP directly.
https://github.com/SAP/fundamental-react
https://github.com/SAP/ui5-webcomponents
Having also been to a number of SAP user group meetups, I've had first hand experience at creating OData services which can then be exposed and consumed by the front end. The OData is essentially 'front-end-agnostic' at this point.
I have extensive experience of developing front-end applications with React and Angular 2+ which makes me a little biased but, when we have our system upgrade, will it be best practice to develop using SAPUI5? Are we limited to this? Or is it perfectly fine to use React? Are there any examples of companies/ developers using React with SAP? Does anyone have any experience with this? I'd love some feedback so we can move forward with our strategy.
Please also note that we will be using an on-premise version, with no access to the Web IDE or the Cloud Platform.
To me, it's a no brainer - I would suggest to use React as it's a matured and well tested solution which performs very well and can be scaled with ease, with the addition of easy native support via React-Native should we wish to implement bespoke mobile solutions. Not only that, hiring new developers would be fairly easy and more cost effective as React is more commonly used than SAPUI5 in the web development scene.
Our customers will be the business. To them, the applications will look exactly the same if developed using styled React components vs SAPUI5. The only difference (personally) is that it will be a lot easier to develop via React. Are there any implications of using one over the other?
I know that there are various tools that have been developed in the past for frameworks such as React, which make development very easy. I just don't know of anything that compares for SAPUI5.
Modern frameworks like React also support and follow the latest ECMAScript standards & features - which benefits developers, allowing them to write concise and performant code. State management can be handled with ease, with the aid of Redux and the 'out-of-the-box' React Hooks.
You don`t want to use anything else then UI5 for a SAP system.
Launchpad support, incl. cross app navigation
SAP support (you pay for this already)
Message handling
I believe there is no great frontend oData implementation, except ui5 ones.
Out of the box accessibility features and default translations for a lot of areas(FI, PM etc.)
A large set of enterprise approved ui elements
v2->v4 adapter, you can write now apps for a v2 oData service using the v4 and change once the backend is ready for v4
--
Further more, modern development looks most probably like this:
Frontend development is done while using ui5-tooling
You can use ECMAScript version as needed or include any other tooling
Cloud (nodejs stack) Backend is most probably moving towards CAP
S/4 HANA (ABAP stack) has now a new development model called RAP
S/4 HANA comes with SAP HANA XSA what is basically a cloud foundry environment. Hence, you can deploy almost anything.
All this parts are surprisingly modern and follow the "Zero Lock-In" approach; which means, you could change any of them and still use the rest... but why the struggle. All of this works perfectly together for enterprise use cases.
I can add some extra things:
SAP oData is extended format then odata.org, so it is hard to use it with other frameworks. There is no documentation about it (I can't find it).
Probably your Hana license will be bundled with S/4. So you cannot expose oData from XSA without extra license (Generally DB license limited only own SAP applications such as NW).
Also you can need extra license for consuming SAP Gateway oData service with other frameworks.
Generally SAP license models are very complicated and sales man generally says "Everything included to this license" without unwritten.

NuGet feed hosting options including MyGet [closed]

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I have been investigating options for NuGet feed hosts.
Currently, we use TeamCity to build/publish packages to TC's built-in server. For a Visual Studio package-source pointed to TC, we've found that the subscription/update process to be painfully slow -- even though our developer workstations are within the same local subnet and we have only a few dozen packages.
Other package-feed options I know about :
nw share
internal web-server(s) based on NuGet.Server
MyGet
ProGet
Does anyone have enterprise-level experience with any of these solutions ?
MyGet looks very promising, but one cause for concern is that ( at least according to their website ) only around 1500 feeds are active. If MyGet had truly caught on, it would seem that this should be 150,000 or so.
Also: is there anything in the NuGet world similar to Maven's concept of a local-only "snapshot" package engine and feed server ?
Thanks.
As one of the founders of MyGet let me take this question :-) We indeed have around 1.500 feeds hosted on our public website, we also have some enterprise users who have their own domains and are not listed here. Feel free to contact us if you require more info or want to be in touch with one of them. We're also open for just a chat so feel free.
In the Gallery (http://www.myget.org/gallery) we have famous projects like SignalR, RavenDB, Glimpse and the ASP.NET team is pushing their nightlies as well.
In the field, we see a lot of "self hosted" solutions based on NuGet.Server but these are typically smaller installations. Just as with network shares, it lacks a bit in performance when too many packages are in that feed.
Speaking to performance, our newest 2.0 release of ProGet underwent some performance enhancements, mainly caching of LDAP credentials and the fact that package data is now cached in the database, so adding packages doesn't have to rebuild the full index of packages (where previously if combined with something like 1000s of packages stored by RedGate's Deployment Manager, it would have slowed things a bit).
I'd like to add two products to the list.
Sonatype's Nexus pro - If you are running a mixed Java/.NET shop it might be a good
alternative. http://www.sonatype.com/nexus/features. I'm not sure here but since Nexus is a maven tool from beginning it would be plausible that it has some kind of snapshot support for nuget feeds as well, however not local.
Teamcity - it has built in support for nuget that integrates and works well with teamcity but it (version 7.1.4) does not support all native nuget operations like managing packages from outside teamcity and there is no easy way to proxy other feeds nor support for multiple feeds. http://jetbrains.com/teamcity

Web-app deployment and multiple versions [closed]

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I'm curious to know how other developers deal with versioning of web-apps and deploying different versions. The fundamental problem is that someone might be using your web-app when you deploy a new version, at which point the Javascript etc they have not he client-side is out of date.
Versioning the media on the client-side is easy enough, but if you version that you also need to version your business logic and the database, which is where things could get messy...
So I see a couple of ways of dealing with this:
Display a "Upgrading" notice on the site when deploying a new version.
Version tag client-side and reject any submissions to the new version from old client-side sources. Fair enough, but it doesn't really go hand in hand with continuous deployment.
Continuous DB migration - running multiple version of the app at the same time (migrating users to the new version when possible). This would need any updates on the old DB schema to be "forward ported" to the new schema. Seems the most attractive for deployment, but also could be horribly complex.
Somewhere in the middle of all three.
I should note that I know worrying about this kind of thing is beyond the needs of most apps, but I was thinking about it and I'm curious to know how others deal with it.
This is really an amazing question.
Most important and effective tool is Git that is currently used for versioning tool though there are many tools but I found git the most efficient as it tracks the working of every employee.We can also took suggestions from public contributors for testing purpose. We can make different branches from main that help us to keep our code present in all versions with or without new features. And auto deployment is not a positive step you should test that several times and use different test cases for that.
There are plenty of tools available for your exact requirements. Like Phing, and Phingistrano. Git also makes it simple but that wont display offline notice and DB deployment . I recommend dont go for auto deployment on live server, use auto deployment on staging and manual deployment on live. Also look for continuous integration on google and try teamcity

DotNetNuke - Pro vs. Community Versions [closed]

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Our organization is looking to put up a site utilizing DotNetNuke, and according to our consultant (who is less a .Net fan and more of a Joomla fan), there is 'anecotal evidence' that the Community version is crippled in a way that pretty much forces you to get Pro if you wish to have a reliable site.
I have serious doubts as to the validity of this claim, but just in case I would be very interested to hear if this is or is not the case, based on use of the product and it's community and professional versions.
Specifically, if there are bugs/issues/etc in the community version that are resolved only by upgrading to pro.
I apoligize in advance if I posted this on the wrong stack exchange, but figured this was the best bet ;)
I would definitely disagree with that assessment.
The only Pro feature that I can think of that might affect reliability is a different caching provider (which we've had more problems with than the standard caching provider). I believe it's the suggested provider for a web farm scenario, but in most typical scenarios it won't be a big issue.
The community edition is the same community edition that's been used in real sites for years, there's been no crippling to it since the introduction of the Pro version. The Pro version is just a number of custom extensions on top of the community edition, most of which are quite optional for everyday use a website.
The Edition Comparison on DotNetNuke.com shows the following inequalities:
Advanced Content Approval Workflows
Content approvals ensure any of your users impacted by a content change can approve updates before they go live. Workflow approvals can be configured in a top down hierarchy at the site, page, and module level. A business rules engine enables workflows with an unlimited number of states and reviewers
Granular Permissions
Page, module and folder level extended permissions provide granular security rights which allow you to precisely define which content contributors can edit which modules on each page.
Advanced Site Search
The search engine includes rich query syntax with support for Boolean searches, phrase searches, relevance searches, wild cards, fuzzy searches, and groupings. Includes a true web spider that is capable of indexing any site which removes the requirement to implement the ISearchable interface within modules.
Configuration Manager
A host user can manage the various configuration files that control run-time operation. Upload a Configuration Merge script which can be used to automate many of the more repetitive and complex configuration operations.
Content Staging
Content contributors and software engineers make all changes to your web site on a physically separate staging server. You push the staging site to production when all changes have been reviewed, tested and approved.
My Editable Pages
Links to all of the pages and modules in the site which a user has permission to Edit are displayed, allowing efficient page editing
Document Management
A complete document management solution which allows your organization to store, control and view documents online
Module Caching
A database caching provider for module content which stores module content in a centralized database for faster page loading without requiring web server processing.
Page Caching
Allows your site to save an entire page of rendered content to one of three different caching locations: memory, database or disk. Improves page delivery speed for site visitors.
Distributed Caching Provider
More efficient resource usage in large web farms
File Integrity Checking
Checks files in the installation and reports any inconsistencies which may impact website reliability
Health Monitoring
Pings your web site periodically to identify failures and will notify you of any problems. Also ensures the site stays in web server memory for faster visitor accessibility
Security Center
A host-level feature which dynamically loads a list of known security vulnerabilities affecting your version of DotNetNuke and provides you with navigational guidance to acquire the latest upgrade
Comprehensive Product Documentation
Includes more than 2,800 pages divided into User and Superuser Manuals
Online Knowledge Base
Provides guidance for DotNetNuke administrative tasks and answers to common technical questions
Impersonate User
A host-level feature that allows you to impersonate another user who is a member of your web site. Search for a user by name and then click an icon to assume their identity to view the site using the user’s permissions while keeping their password confidential.
Outside of the three caching items, I don't see anything in there that's more than icing on the cake. Also, having used many of those features, they aren't quite as impressive as they all sound, and the DNN community core isn't completely devoid of any similar features. Module caching, in particular, is available in the community edition, there's just another provider. Also, page caching is possible in the community edition, it just doesn't come with any page caching providers built-in.
Quite the opposite.
Disclosure: Scott Willhite, Director of Community Relations for DotNetNuke
There is absolutely NO limiting code in the DotNetNuke Community Edition, and I am quite proud of that fact. We have made a purposeful and, frankly, very challenging business decision to keep our Community Edition the base of all of our software. We engage in enhancement of the base Community Edition to produce Professional and Enterprise editions using the same extension points that are available to all developers. And we constantly add features and capability to the Community Edition which benefit all users of the platform. Any suggestion to the contrary is unfounded and misleading.
Some companies choose to limit their free editions (by number of users, number of content items, number of pages, etc). Some require branding that can't be removed in free editions. Others specifically use their free editions as "hooks", knowing that a customer of any size will be forced to upgrade if they want to continue using the product. None of these approaches is acceptable in a truly open source environment and none of them are in practice with DotNetNuke.
It is fair to say that we have resources working on proprietary extensions to distinguish our Professional and Enterprise edition offerings. But this is the same privilege we enable hundreds of thousands of others to enjoy who develop for or implement proprietary solutions using DotNetNuke. We are also customers of those extension points and so are constantly improving them for everyone's benefit because we don't just use them as marketing points, we base our companies products on them. Every release of DotNetNuke contains both substantial Community Edition as well as commercial edition enhancements.
To specifically answer your question... while there are no constraints within the Community Edition of DotNetNuke, and it is a highly functional application out of the box, it cannot address every need (no product can, all projects have unique requirements). This is why it is constructed with well defined extensions points and why there is such a vibrant open source and commercial ecosystem supporting it. So it is fair to say that the solution, out of the box, may not address all of your needs specifically? But between Professional & Enterprise options, 000's of commercial extensions on Snowcovered, 00's of open source options in the DotNetNuke Forge and myriad developers and integrators in the ecosystem (in addition to your own skills), I am confident that any need can be met in the way that makes the most sense for your or any application.
I too would disagree strongly. I've been working with DNN for years, well since version 3 and there is no great conspiracy to force CE users to upgrade to Pro. I've rolled out 100+ Community Edition sites (seriously, no exaggeration) and the ONLY PE sites I've worked on were usually government or educational institutions where they needed content staging or the benefits of the OpenDocument Library module. To me, it sounds much like you say - your consultant is letting his opinion of .Net vs. PHP flavor his recommendations.

Usable view for dumb users? [closed]

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I'm working on a small project that requires some of our users to be able to view/sort/filter and generally play around with a large amount of data. It's based on a sql server 2000 view and is something on the order of 125k rows worth of historical event data (think sports).
Normally I would turn to excel for this kind of simple manipulation, but the version of excel we use doesn't support more than 65k rows (2003). I've thought of access, but on the surface the interface seems a bit complicated.
Does anyone know of a good tool to allow these users to quickly perform these kinds of operations?
Honestly, if you're confident you could implement a solution quickly (lets say 1 hour) with excel 2007. Consider that Office 2007 costs ~ $500, and whatever your hourly rate is (lets just say $50 for kicks), then you would need to build something within 10 hours and anything over that you'd be better off going and buying Office 2007.
10 hours, that's less than 2 days of dev time. And the $500 price tag is for a new copy of office, not the upgrade version.
Sounds like it's time to upgrade.
BTW, here are some numbers of Excel 2007 limitations.
Report Builder 2.0 is an easy to use tool for creating reports.
If you install Sql Server Express 2008, you get Reporting Services for free.
This will work till you hit the size limit for Sql Express, I believe 4GB of data.
what about an intranet site?
Take a look at ASP.NET Dynamic Data websites. You should be able to create a basic site in an hour or less. They even look good out of the box.
And your users may be "dumb" but you're working for them!
A Crystal Report is not bad if you set it up with the right filters, which the users can control.
Then you can either embed in an intranet site (very easy w/visual studio), or let them view it locally with the free viewer.
If you're already using SQL server, try installing SQL server reporting services (SSRS). it allows you to quickly generate reports for your users and publish them on a web interface, or it even has a plugin for the browser called a Report Builder, which allows users to create their own reports. If the users are proficient in excel, then Report Builder would be an easy jump for them to make.
Create a small windows app, having just 1 gridview on it, with sorting / paging etc. enabled?
If you end up doing some sort of website, check out the Google visualization API for some really spiffy graphs and charts.

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