Webhost needed for Classic ASP based sites
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From another thread I seen this recommendation for hosting providers.
@thecreativeone91 said:
Why don't you look at a bigger one.. Rackspace, Dreamhost, Hostgator, JustHost are the usually ones if you are only doing webhosting. Rackspace will be expensive though.
Which of these would you all recommend for a classic ASP based website?
I am going to meet with a potential client that has a large number of sites all built on classic ASP that he hired a new company to update.
Well said new company screwed up. I am going to to go in and find out how bad tomorrow.
I want to turn around and offer to bring all their stuff back up from his backups prior to any changes on a new host. Then after all services are working, I will recommend a solution to migrate forward.
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I'm not aware of anyone that can host ASP. That requires an IIS server setup in a specific way that predates these types of services. They might be all over the place, but I've literally never encountered a provider myself who could do that. And because it is Windows only, it is more costly so even if people offered it, it would be an uncommon service. ASP.NET is rare enough.
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We ran ASP stuff for about a decade. But always self hosted, never looked at third party hosts for that. You assume you probably are going to need SQL Server backing for that, which adds even more complications.
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Most of those services offers ASP.NET/Classic ASP Hosting with IIS 7. I'd checkout Hostgator.
That said. I hate IIS and ASP/ASP.NET with a passion.
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@scottalanmiller said:
I'm not aware of anyone that can host ASP.
Really? I'm not aware of a Windows host that can't. After all, it's just a tick box to add the role to IIS, so why wouldn't they?
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@scottalanmiller said:
You assume you probably are going to need SQL Server backing for that, which adds even more complications.
A database is completely separate. There is no need for ASP to use SQL Server. You could use MySQL just fine, for example. I use Access and it has worked great.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
A database is completely separate. There is no need for ASP to use SQL Server. You could use MySQL just fine, for example. I use Access and it has worked great.
"Could" sure, but just like PHP hosting assumes MySQL, ASP hosting assumes SQL Server. Remember no one has written ASP code for over a decade. It was replaced more than thirteen years ago. So just because it "can" connect to many different databases, the only thing that matters is to what databases was it written to connect to long, long ago.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Remember no one has written ASP code for over a decade.
Not true, I wrote some yesterday
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Why not? It's all I know.
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All our intranet applications and websites are written in it. along with a front-end for our ERP system. Pretty much everything, basically.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
All our intranet applications and websites are written in it. along with a front-end for our ERP system. Pretty much everything, basically.
My biggest concern, if you are okay with the hosting limitations, maintenance, performance, features, etc., would be around the "bus" problem. If you were to get hit by a bus, finding someone to support ASP apps would be difficult and expensive as I know of no one who has used it in longer than most people's careers. Especially if it is written in VBScript, which hasn't existed since ASP deprecated, rather than JScript which was a bit more modern (but still gone, but more like a surviving language.) Most people in IT aren't even aware of ASP and think it is a nickname for ASP.NET.
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Of course. The "bus" issue as you call it is a problem with all legacy applications. We still have dBase III applications in production.
I suspect VBScript is still far more common than you think, though.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I suspect VBScript is still far more common than you think, though.
Common, perhaps, but not with developers. Only with legacy support IT folk, which generally isn't too useful as a resource if you need to support an ASP app.
Another concern is that officially, Microsoft hasn't stated that ASP "support" is going to continue. The last support update that was given was that Windows 7 "is" supported and that Windows 8 "will" support it. That doesn't mean that Windows 10 and forward won't, but Microsoft has not committed to it.
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I'm not sure what your point is? Supporting legacy applications is a fact of life for most companies.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Of course. The "bus" issue as you call it is a problem with all legacy applications. We still have dBase III applications in production.
I suspect VBScript is still far more common than you think, though.
We run classic ASP sites here too. We have one on ASP.NET, but most of our intranet site pages are written in classic ASP.
Server 2012 and IIS should be able to support classic ASP.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I'm not sure what your point is? Supporting legacy applications is a fact of life for most companies.
That they DO support legacy apps is a fact of life. But lots of companies do things that they don't need to. I'm not saying that keeping ASP in your case is the wrong decision, but keeping it because "lots of companies make bad decisions" isn't a viable reason for it. Yes, most companies support legacy apps. Most companies also go out of business. The two are not related at all. But what "most companies do" is never a good guideline to use.
One of the biggest benefits of a community like this is to be challenged to think about if something is the right way to do things. Is supporting a legacy app something you do because, why not? Or is it the best option? It is six of one, half a dozen of another?
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@NetworkNerd said:
Server 2012 and IIS should be able to support classic ASP.
Yes, Server 2012 is Windows 8. The last version that Microsoft has stated will support ASP. They've said nothing about dropping support, they have simply only stated that Windows up to 8 would support it.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Is supporting a legacy app something you do because, why not? Or is it the best option? It is six of one, half a dozen of another?
OK, if that's your point/question, the answer is, as stated above, because it's all I currently know and I'm the only developer here.
Am I planning to replace it with something else? Absolutely.
