The Microsoft ASP.NET Hosting Advantage

he Microsoft ASP.NET Hosting Advantage initiative helps Service Providers improve Windows hosting proficiency and drive traffic.

* Register Your Company Now

*
Already a member? Manage your profile
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Questions? E-mail asphost@microsoft.com

As the demand for dynamic Web applications grows rapidly, and the hobbyist developer segment continues to grow, service providers must find efficient ways to market to Web developers. Compelling developer offers provide a way for you to build a developer channel and grow your Web hosting business. The Microsoft® ASP.NET Hosting Advantage helps service providers deploy, launch, and successfully market ASP.NET offerings by providing the following resources:
Microsoft initiative helps Service Providers improve Windows hosting proficiency and drive traffic

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Promotion in the ASP.NET Hoster Directory:
Microsoft helps developers find quality ASP.NET Web hosting services via this directory. It is promoted on key developer Web sites and marketing channels including MSDN, e-newsletters, and conferences, as well as to Microsoft's worldwide sales and marketing field. Participation in the directory has driven increased traffic and sign-ups for partner hosters.
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ASP.NET Hosting Kit:
ASP.NET Hosting Kit: The ASP.NET Hosting kit contains guidance on how to best deploy and host ASP.NET. It includes highlights on enhancements in Windows Server 2003, best practices for deploying and managing ASP.NET Hosting, access to freely distributable developer tools such as ASP.NET Web Matrix, and a Windows Server 2003 Evaluation Kit.
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ASP.NET Hosting Marketing Resources Kit:
The ASP.NET Hosting Marketing Resources Kit helps hosters market ASP.NET services and connect with developers through tools, training, and compelling offers. The kit includes customer-ready collateral including brochures, e-mail and Web templates, and direct mail pieces.

* Service providers who have already launched ASP.NET offerings on Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 have experienced significant benefits.

How to Join
Are you ready to start reaping the benefits of the ASP.NET Hosting Advantage? Once you read and agree to the following requirements, then register for the ASP.NET Hosting Advantage If you have questions, send e-mail to asphost@microsoft.com.

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Requirements
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Register
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e-mail

Update your ASP.NET Hosting Advantage profile
Use the following links to update your personal contact or company membership information.

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Review or edit company information for the directory (includes information displayed in the ASP.NET Hoster directory). Note: you must be the primary company contact to perform this action.
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Review or edit your contact information.
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Add yourself as a company contact.
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Change your company affiliation (if you've moved to another company).

Web Hosting Forums
And don't forget, Web Hosting Forums - is your resource for quick answers to technical, marketing, and licensing questions, as well as an excellent place to make lasting industry connections.

ASP Web Hosting

ASP Web Hosting: ASP Web Hosting gives a company the ability to create their own customized web solution using the popular Active Server Pages (ASP) technology. Our ASP Web Hosting Showcase features ASP Web Hosting companies that provide top-notch ASP Web Hosting at an affordable price.

#1 ASP Web Hosting by Editors Review - HostDepartment NoLimit PLan! NoLimit Space, Traffic, Email, Host UNLIMITED Websites, Free Domain Name for LIFE, 6 MONTHS FREE, No Setup fee! Support ASP/ASP.NET, ColdFusion MX, FrontPage 2000, 2002, and 2003, UNLIMITED Microsoft SQL Server, MS Access, ODBC, MySQL Databases for $4.95/Mo.More info

FREE Domain & Setup! Register today with Web.com! In 3 easy steps you can post your photos, your blog, and more. Be seen on the web tonight. Only $9.95/month.More info

* Free ASP Components! Enjoy Windows Hosting from Uplinkearth packed full of components from Telerik and FlatBurger! Includes our 1-click auto-installer script library! Support for ASP, .NET, SQL, Perl & PHP. CALL US Toll-Free at 800-745-3043 or Chat Live More info

WebHost4Life is a leading provider of Win2003 Hosting. **** ASP.NET, ASP, SharePoint, FrontPage, MS SQL, PHP, Perl, MySQL **** 24/7 Phone & Email Support! 30 days money back guarantee.More info


ASP WEB HOSTING - 6 MONTHS FREE/FREE SETUP - CLICK HERE
• Classic ASP, ASP. NET 1.1, ASP.NET 2.0 Hosting
• FREE ASP/.NET Component Incl. ASPUpload - ASPJpeg - ASPEmail
• MS SQL 2005 & MS SQL 2000 Database w/ Real-Time SQL Backups
• FREE Customizable Spam Filtering & FREE Webmail Access
• "BEST ASP HOST" by asp.netPRO Magazine 3 Years Running!
• "BEST ASP HOST" by Visual Studio Magazine for 2007
More info

Gate.com – Unparalleled Reliability and Security:
• Clustered platform – No Single Point of Failure
• Cisco-powered Network and Security
• Mazu Enforcer and Profiler Anti-DDOS System
• Brightmail Anti-SPAM Filtering Solution More info


Free ASP


Here is a list of FREE, yes FREE ASP hosting providers.
If you have one drop us an email and will add it to the list.

Site Name Disk Space
http://www.websamba.com 30
http://www.cfm-resources.com 30
http://www.brinkster.com 30
http://www.7host.com 50
http://www.maxipointservers.net 20
http://www.ionwd.com ?
http://www.1asphost.com 100
http://www.everanet.com
?

Free ASP.NET
http://www.brinkster.com 30

WAP
http://www.maxipointservers.net/ ?

Free WAP Hosts
Info on Free WAP Hosts by Micheal Wright

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What is an Application Service Provider (ASP) ?

This article does not cite any references or sources. (April 2007)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

An application service provider (ASP) is a business that provides computer-based services to customers over a network. Software offered using an ASP model is also sometimes called On-demand software or software as a service (SaaS). The most limited sense of this business is that of providing access to a particular application program (such as medical billing) using a standard protocol such as HTTP.

The need for ASPs has evolved from the increasing costs of specialized software that have far exceeded the price range of small to medium sized businesses. As well, the growing complexities of software have led to huge costs in distributing the software to end-users. Through ASPs, the complexities and costs of such software can be cut down. In addition, the issues of upgrading have been eliminated from the end-firm by placing the onus on the ASP to maintain up-to-date services, 24 x 7 technical support, physical and electronic security and in-built support for business continuity and flexible working.

The importance of this marketplace is reflected by its size. As of early 2003, estimates of the United States market range from 1.5 to 4 billion dollars. Clients for ASP services include businesses, government organizations, non-profits, and membership organizations.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Provider types
* 2 The ASP model
* 3 History
* 4 See also
* 5 External links

[edit] Provider types

There are several forms of ASP business. These are:

* A specialist or functional ASP delivers a single application, such as credit card payment processing or timesheet services;
* A vertical market ASP delivers a solution package for a specific customer type, such as a dental practice;
* An enterprise ASP delivers broad spectrum solutions;
* A local ASP delivers small business services within a limited area.

Some analysts identify a volume ASP as a fifth type. This is basically a specialist ASP that offers a low cost packaged solution via their own website. PayPal was an instance of this type, and their volume was one way to lower the unit cost of each transaction.

In addition to these types, some large multi-line companies (such as IBM), use ASP concepts as a particular business model that supports some specific customers.

[edit] The ASP model

The application software resides on the vendor's system and is accessed by users through a web browser using HTML or by special purpose client software provided by the vendor. Custom client software can also interface to these systems through XML APIs. These APIs can also be used where integration with in-house systems is required.

Common features associated with ASPs include:

* ASP fully owns and operates the software application(s)
* ASP owns, operates and maintains the servers that support the software
* ASP makes information available to customers via the Internet or a "thin client"
* ASP bills on a "per-use" basis or on a monthly/annual fee

The advantages to this approach include:

* Software integration issues are eliminated from the client site
* Software costs for the application are spread over a number of clients
* Vendors can build more application experience than the in-house staff
* Key software systems are kept up to date, available, and managed for performance by experts
* Improve the reliability, availability, scalability and security of internal IT systems
* A provider's service level agreement guarantees a certain level of service
* Access product and technology experts dedicated to available products
* Reduce internal IT costs to a predictable monthly fee.
* Redeploy IT staff and tools to focus on strategic technology projects that impact the enterprise's bottom line

Some inherent disadvantages include:

* The client must generally accept the application as provided since ASPs can only afford a customized solution for the largest clients
* The client may rely on the provider to provide a critical business function, thus limiting their control of that function and instead relying on the provider
* Changes in the ASP market may result in changes in the type or level of service available to clients
* Integration with the client's non-ASP systems may be problematic

Evaluating an Application Service Provider security when moving to an ASP infrastructure can come at a high cost, as such a firm must assess the level of risk associated with the ASP itself. Failure to properly account for such risk can lead to:

* Loss of control of corporate data
* Loss of control of corporate image
* Insufficient ASP security to counter risks
* Exposure of corporate data to other ASP customers
* Compromise of corporate data

Some other risks include failure to account for the financial future of the ASP in general, i.e. how stable a company are they and do they have the resources to continue business into the foreseeable future. For these reasons Cisco Systems has developed a comprehensive evaluation guideline. This guideline includes evaluating the scope of the ASP's service, the security of the program and the ASP's maturity with regard to security awareness. Finally the guidelines indicate the importance of performing audits on the ASP with respect to:

* Port/Network service
* Application vulnerability
* ASP Personnel

Physical visits to the ASP to assess the formality of the organization will provide invaluable insight into the awareness of the firm.

[edit] History

In terms of their common goal of enabling customers to outsource specific computer applications so they can focus on their core competencies, ASPs may be regarded as the indirect descendants of the service bureaus of the 1960s and 1970s. In turn, those bureaus were trying to fulfill the vision of computing as a utility, which was first proposed by John McCarthy in a speech at MIT in 1961.

[edit] See also

* Software as a Service
* Hosted service provider
* Business service provider
* Service Level Agreement
* Utility Computing
* Outsourcing
* Multitenancy
* Secure Virtual Office

[edit] External links

* How ASPs Work
* Application Service Providers at the Open Directory Project

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_service_provider"

Categories: Articles lacking sources from April 2007 | All articles lacking sources | Services management and marketing | Supply chain management

Lunarpages

The creator of this article, or someone who has substantially contributed to it, may have a conflict of interest regarding its subject matter.
It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view.
Please discuss further on the talk page.
This article has been tagged since October 2007.
This article does not cite any references or sources. (October 2007)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
Lunarpages
Type
Founded
Headquarters
Industry Internet, Web hosting
Website www.lunarpages.com

Lunarpages is a Web Hosting company, which also sells domain name registration and other e-business and e-commerce website features. It was created in the late 1990s by Ron Riddle and Maximiliam Andersen (Andersen was previously with technology companies in Sweden). The name “Lunarpages” was inspired by Riddle’s interest in the popular sci-fi television show Star Trek[citation needed]. In fact, some of their first hosting packages included the “Shuttle” and “Voyager” plans, also Trek-inspired. Their trademarked logo is a small planet with two gold/yellow rings circling it. Lunarpages’ services literally began with a handful of servers housed in Riddle’s bedroom, where Riddle and Andersen offered free web hosting subscriptions to customers worldwide. Currently, Lunarpages serves more than 140,000 worldwide customers and staffs 130 full-time employees. Andersen has since sold his shares of the company to Riddle, who is the sole owner and CEO of Lunarpages Web Hosting.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Evolution of Company
* 2 The Lunarpages Affiliate Program
* 3 LunarForums.com
* 4 External links

[edit] Evolution of Company

With the creation of a web hosting forum in 1998 (which still exists today), Lunarpages garnished interest from webmasters looking for free website hosting. LunarForums quickly grew from a simple place to ask basic questions to a resource for webmasters to find answers on everything from general web design and email to complex coding, software recommendations, and technical issues. The popularity of their free hosting service expanded considerably in 2000, enough that Riddle and Anderson decided to open up the company to paid hosting services in the Shared Hosting market. They created the Shuttle and Voyager Plans; the former was best-suited for new webmasters who needed a quick page or two, while the latter was meant for Ecommerce Web Hosting or sites requiring a larger amount of storage space and bandwidth. These two plans still exist today, in the form of “Basic” and “Business” Hosting.

In 2000, Riddle also recruited three additional staff members to handle new customer loads, take sales calls, and offer technical support for paid services. Chad Riddle, Ron Riddle’s son, managed the new addition of a Sales Desk for incoming calls and tickets. Lee Coleman took over as the IT Manager to handle incoming tech support, server issues, and general server maintenance tasks. Amy Armitage worked alongside Chad Riddle in managing the Sales Team and has since become the head of Business Development and Marketing. These three employees remain with the company today in senior management positions.

Andersen sold his share of the business to Riddle in 2005, and the same year, Lunarpages ventured into Windows web hosting for the ASP.NET and MSSQL hosting platform. In 2006, Lunarpages launched their Dedicated Hosting Plans and added VPS web hosting in 2007. They recently (in July of 2007) launched a Dedicated Hosting Site to house their 20-some Dedicated Hosting options, including their Mega and High-Performance Dedicated Servers. Even more recently, Lunarpages launched their UK site, marking their inclusion as a true world-wide web host.

Today they run 3 data centers (in Los Angeles, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Riverside, California), two call centers (both in La Habra, California), and have more than 130 full time staff consisting of System Administrators, Customer Service Representatives, Developers, and a dynamic Sales and Marketing Team.

They have partnered with companies such as Microsoft (for Windows Web Hosting), TuCows (for domain registration), CPanel (for Linux Control Panels), SWSoft (for Windows Control Panels), and Authorize.NET (for Payment Gateways). In addition to Web Hosting, Lunarpages resells domain name registration, SSL Certificates, Dedicated IP addresses, and offers basic web design templates in their Beta release of PageMason.

Recent merges in the web hosting industry (such as IpowerWeb’s merger with Endurance) pose the question of Lunarpages selling or merging with another industry leader, though Lunarpages has spoken out about the compromise this would cause their business. In their “About Us” page, they mention that this is one of their best business moves, as their customers can see that they are not interested in buying and selling but in growing the company and their resources. Ron Riddle continues to manage and operate the company and several of his family members assist, making Lunarpages a family-oriented entity.

Lunarpages also provides their customers with a web hosting blog and newsletter to keep them up-to-date (offering advice on Marketing, SEO, Web Design, and more) as well as provide them with an escape from webmaster issues, with industry-leader, staff, and customer interviews, funny articles, and lighthearted but helpful tutorials.

[edit] The Lunarpages Affiliate Program

Lunarpages launched a Web Hosting Affiliate Program in 2000. This Affiliate Program is an in-house program which rewards their customers and even non-customers for referring new business to Lunarpages with $65 1st-tier commissions and $5 2nd-tier commissions. To date, this program has paid out nearly $4 million in affiliate commissions and continues to be one of the top-ranked Affiliate Programs in the Web Hosting Industry with over 53,000 affiliates enrolled. The Lunarpages Affiliate Program is geared towards web designers but admits any interested party and is one of the only programs in the industry to offer personalized support with two Affiliate Account Managers, Amy Armitage and Tiara Rea.

[edit] LunarForums.com

The forum that helped Lunarpages to become successful is still a working forum, where nearly 40,000 members post on a day-to-day basis. Having a website hosted with Lunarpages is not a prerequisite to posting on LunarForums, and in fact, many people who post help and ask questions are not members but merely tech enthusiasts willing to lend a hand or confused webmasters requiring information. LunarForums is comprised of Lunarpages Staff and System Administrators, new customers who require support that’s outside of Lunarpages’ normal assistance, old customers willing to lend a hand, and a general audience of geeks and webmasters. In existence since 1998, it is one of the oldest forums in the web hosting industry.

[edit] External links

* Lunarpages Web Hosting
* Lunarpages Dedicated Server Hosting
* Lunarpages Affiliate Program
* LunarForums
* Lunarpages Web Hosting Newsletter
* Lunartics Blog

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunarpages"

Categories: Wikipedia articles with possible conflicts of interest | Articles lacking sources from October 2007 | All articles lacking sources | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since October 2007 | Web hosting

ASP.NET

ASP.NET is a web application framework marketed by Microsoft that programmers can use to build dynamic web sites, web applications and XML web services. It is part of Microsoft's .NET platform and is the successor to Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP) technology. ASP.NET is built on the Common Language Runtime, allowing programmers to write ASP.NET code using any Microsoft .NET language.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Characteristics
o 1.1 ASPX file format
o 1.2 Rendering technique
o 1.3 Other files
o 1.4 Directory structure
* 2 Performance
* 3 Extension
* 4 ASP.NET compared to ASP classic
* 5 Criticisms of ASP.NET
* 6 Development tools
* 7 Frameworks
* 8 History
* 9 See also
* 10 References
* 11 External links

[edit] Characteristics

[edit] ASPX file format

ASPX is a text file format used to create Webform pages; in programming jargon, the ASPX file typically contains static HTML or XHTML markup, as well as markup defining Web Controls and Web User Controls where the developers place all the required static and dynamic content for the web page. Additionally, dynamic code which runs on the server can be placed in a page within a block <% -- dynamic code -- %> which is similar to other web development technologies such as PHP, JSP, and ASP, but this practice is generally frowned upon by Microsoft except for the purposes of data binding since it requires more calls when rendering the page.

The method recommended by Microsoft for dealing with dynamic program code is to use the code-behind model, which places this code in a separate file or in a specially designated script tag. Code-behind files are typically named something to the effect of MyPage.aspx.cs or MyPage.aspx.vb based on the ASPX file name (this practice is automatic in Microsoft Visual Studio and other IDEs). When using this style of programming, the developer writes code to respond to different events, like the page being loaded, or a control being clicked, rather than a procedural walk through the document.

[edit] Rendering technique

ASP.NET uses a visited composites rendering technique. During compilation the template (.aspx) file is compiled into initialization code which will build a control tree (the composite) representing the original (static) template. Literal text goes into instances of the Literal control class, server controls are represented by instances of a specific control class. The initialization code is combined with user-written code (usually by the assembly of multiple partial classes) and results in a class specific for the page. The page doubles as the root of the control tree.

Actual requests for the page are processed through a number of steps. First, during the initialization steps, an instance of the page class is created and the initialization code is executed. This produces the initial control tree which is now typically manipulated by the methods of the page in the following steps. As each node in the tree is a control represented as an instance of a class, the code may change the tree structure as well as manipulate the properties/methods of the individual nodes. Finally, during the rendering step a visitor is used to visit every node in the tree, asking each node to render itself using the methods of the visitor. The resulting HTML code is sent to the client.

After the request has been processed, the instance of the page class is discarded and with it the entire control tree.

[edit] Other files

Other file extensions associated with different versions of ASP.NET include:

asax
Global.asax, used for application-level logic and event handling[1]
ascx
Web UserControls: custom controls to be placed onto web pages.
ashx
custom HTTP handlers
asmx
web service pages.
axd
when enabled in web.config requesting trace.axd outputs application-level tracing. Also used for the special webresource axd handler which allows control/component developers to package a component/control complete with images, script, css etc. for deployment in a single file (an 'assembly')
browser
browser capabilities files stored in XML format; introduced in version 3.0. ASP.NET 2 includes many of these by default, to support common web browsers. These specify which browsers have which capabilities, so that ASP.NET 2 can automatically customize and optimize its output accordingly. Special .browser files are available for free download to handle, for instance, the W3C Validator, so that it properly shows standards-compliant pages as being standards-compliant. Replaces the harder-to-use BrowserCaps section that was in machine.config and could be overridden in web.config in ASP.NET 1.x.
config
web.config is the only file in a specific Web application to use this extension by default (machine.config similarly affects the entire Web server and all applications on it), however ASP.NET provides facilities to create and consume other config files. These are stored in XML format, so as to allow configuration changes to be made with simplicity.
cs/vb
In ASP.NET 2 any cs/vb files placed inside the App_Code folder are dynamically compiled and available to the whole application.
master
Master Pages; introduced in version 2.0
sitemap
sitemap configuration files
skin
theme skin files.
resx
resource files for internationalization and localization. Resource files can be global (e.g. messages) or "local" which means specific for a single aspx or ascx or file.
dbml
(version 3.5) LINQ to SQL data classes file

[edit] Directory structure

In general, the ASP.NET directory structure can be determined by the developer's preferences. Apart from a few reserved directory names, the site can span any number of directories. The structure is typically reflected directly in the urls. Although ASP.NET provides means for intercepting the request at any point during processing, the developer is not forced to funnel requests through a central application or front controller.

The special directory names are:

App_Browsers
holds site-specific browser definition files.
App_Code
This is the "raw code" directory. The ASP.NET server will automatically compile files (and subdirectories) in this folder into an assembly which is accessible in the code of every page of the site. App_Code will typically be used for data access abstraction code, model code and business code. Also any site-specific http handlers and modules and web service implementation go in this directory. As an alternative to using App_Code the developer may opt to provide a separate assembly with precompiled code.
App_Data
default directory for databases, such as Access mdb files and SQL Server mdf files. This directory is usually the only one with write access for the application.
App_LocalResources
Contains localized resource files for individual pages of the site. E.g. a file called CheckOut.aspx.fr-FR.resx holds localized resources for the french version of the CheckOut.aspx page. When the UI culture is set to french, ASP.NET will automatically find and use this file for localization.
App_GlobalResources
Holds resx files with localized resources available to every page of the site. This is where the ASP.NET developer will typically store localized messages etc. which are used on more than one page.
App_Themes
holds alternative themes of the site.
App_WebReferences
holds discovery files and WSDL files for references to web services to be consumed in the site.

[edit] Performance

ASP.NET aims for performance benefits over other script-based technologies (including ASP Classic) by compiling the server-side code to one or more DLL files on the web server. This compilation happens automatically the first time a page is requested (which means the developer need not perform a separate compilation step for pages). This feature provides the ease of development offered by scripting languages with the performance benefits of a compiled binary. However, the compilation might cause a noticeable delay to the web user when the newly-edited page is first requested from the web server.

The ASPX and other resource files are placed in a virtual host on an Internet Information Services (or other compatible ASP.NET servers; see Other Implementations, below). The first time a client requests a page, the .NET framework parses and compiles the file(s) into a .NET assembly and sends the response; subsequent requests are served from the DLL files. By default ASP.NET will compile the entire site in batches of 1000 files upon first request. If the compilation delay is causing problems, the batch size or the compilation strategy may be tweaked.

Developers can also choose to pre-compile their code before deployment, eliminating the need for just-in-time compilation in a production environment.

[edit] Extension

Microsoft has released some extension frameworks that plug into ASP.NET and extend its functionality. Some of them are:

ASP.NET AJAX
An extension with both client-side as well as server-side components for writing ASP.NET pages that incorporate AJAX functionality.
ASP.NET MVC Framework
An extension to author ASP.NET pages using the MVC architecture.

[edit] ASP.NET compared to ASP classic

ASP.NET attempts to simplify developers' transition from Windows application development to web development by offering the ability to build pages composed of controls similar to a Windows user interface. A web control, such as a button or label, functions in very much the same way as its Windows counterpart: code can assign its properties and respond to its events. Controls know how to render themselves: whereas Windows controls draw themselves to the screen, web controls produce segments of HTML and JavaScript which form part of the resulting page sent to the end-user's browser.

ASP.NET encourages the programmer to develop applications using an event-driven GUI paradigm (event-driven GUI model), rather than in conventional web-scripting environments like ASP and PHP. The framework attempts to combine existing technologies such as JavaScript with internal components like "ViewState" to bring persistent (inter-request) state to the inherently stateless web environment.

Other differences compared to ASP classic are:

* Compiled code means applications run faster with more design-time errors trapped at the development stage.
* Significantly improved run-time error handling, making use of exception handling using try-catch blocks.
* Similar metaphors to Windows applications such as controls and events, which make development of rich user interfaces, previously only found on the desktop, possible.
* An extensive set of controls and class libraries allows the rapid building of applications, plus user-defined controls allow commonly used templates, such as menus. Layout of these controls on a page is easier because most of it can be done visually in most editors.
* ASP.NET leverages the multi-language capabilities of the .NET CLR, allowing web pages to be coded in VB.NET, C#, J#, etc.
* Ability to cache the whole page or just parts of it to improve performance.
* Ability to use the code-behind development model to separate business logic from presentation.
* If an ASP.NET application leaks memory, the ASP.NET runtime unloads the AppDomain hosting the erring application and reloads the application in a new AppDomain.
* Session state in ASP.NET can be saved in a SQL Server database or in a separate process running on the same machine as the web server or on a different machine. That way session values are not lost when the web server is reset or the ASP.NET worker process is recycled.
* Previous versions of ASP.NET (1.0 and 1.1) were criticized for their lack of standards compliance. The generated HTML and JavaScript sent to the client browser would not always validate against W3C/ECMA standards. In addition, the framework's browser detection feature sometimes incorrectly identified web browsers other than Microsoft's own Internet Explorer as "downlevel" and returned HTML/JavaScript to these clients with some of the features removed, or sometimes crippled or broken. However, in version 2.0, all controls generate valid HTML 4.0, XHTML 1.0 (the default) or XHTML 1.1 output, depending on the site configuration. Detection of standards-compliant web browsers is more robust and support for Cascading Style Sheets is more extensive.
* Web Server Controls: these are controls introduced by ASP.net for providing the UI for the web form. These controls are state managed controls and are WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) controls.

[edit] Criticisms of ASP.NET

Active Server Pages Classic (ASP) and ASP.NET can be run side-by-side in the same web application. This approach allows developers to migrate applications slowly instead of all at once. On IIS 6.0 and lower, pages written using different versions of the ASP framework can't share Session State without the use of third-party libraries. This criticism does not apply to ASP.NET and ASP applications running side by side on IIS 7. With IIS 7, modules may be run in an integrated pipeline that allows modules written in any language to be executed for any request.[2]

In some cases ASP.NET runtime will recycle the worker process (e.g. if it becomes unresponsive or if an application runs amok and causes the worker process to use more than 60% of available RAM). It can also be configured to recycle the process proactively after a certain number of requests, time period etc. In these cases users may lose session state if the application is configured to use in-process sessions. If the application relies on session state to store authentication information (bad practice since cookie based authentication and membership is built into the framework) and the application is configured to use in-process sessions, the user may be logged out if the process is recycled.

ASP.NET 2.0 produces markup that passes W3C validation, but it is debatable as to whether this increases accessibility, one of the benefits of a semantic XHTML page + CSS representation. Several controls, such as the Login controls and the Wizard control, use HTML tables for layout by default. Microsoft has now gone some way to solve this problem by releasing the ASP.NET 2.0 CSS Control Adapters, a free add-on that produces compliant accessible XHTML+CSS markup. However, some controls still rely on JavaScript.

[edit] Development tools

Several available software packages exist for developing ASP.NET applications:

* Microsoft Expression Web, part of the Microsoft Expression Studio application suite.
* Visual Studio .NET (for ASP.NET 1.x)
* ASP.NET Web Matrix (for ASP.NET 1.x; now no longer supported: replaced by the free Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition)
* Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition or Visual Studio 2005 (for ASP.NET 2.0)
* Visual Studio 2008 (for ASP.NET 3.5)
* Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004, or Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 (doesn't support ASP.NET 2.0 features, and produces very inefficient code for ASP.NET 1.x: also, code generation and ASP.NET features support through version 8.0.1 was little if any changed from version MX: version 8.0.2 does add changes to improve security against SQL injection attacks)
* Macromedia HomeSite 5.5 (For ASP Tags)
* Microsoft SharePoint Designer 12
* Delphi 2006
* MonoDevelop (Free/Open Source)
* SharpDevelop (Free/Open Source)

[edit] Frameworks

It is not essential to use the standard webforms development model when developing with ASP.NET. Noteworthy frameworks designed for the platform include:

* Castle Monorail, an open-source MVC framework with an execution model similar to Ruby on Rails. The framework is commonly used with Castle ActiveRecord, an ORM layer built on NHibernate.
* Spring.NET, a port of the Spring framework for Java.

[edit] History
Date Version Remarks New features
January 16, 2002 1.0 First version

released together with Visual Studio .NET


* Object oriented web application development supporting Inheritance, Polymorphism and other standard OOP features
o Developers are no longer forced to use Server.CreateObject(...), so early-binding and type safety are possible.
* Based on Windows programming; the developer can make use of DLL class libraries and other features of the web server to build more robust applications that do more than simply rendering HTML ( i.e. exception handling )

April 24, 2003 1.1 released together with Windows Server 2003

released together with Visual Studio .NET 2003


* Mobile controls
* Automatic input validation

November 7, 2005 2.0

codename Whidbey
released together with Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Web Developer Express
and SQL Server 2005


* New data controls (GridView, FormView, DetailsView)
* New technique for declarative data access (SqlDataSource, ObjectDataSource, XmlDataSource controls)
* Navigation controls
* Master pages
* Login controls
* Themes
* Skins
* Web parts
* Personalization services
* Full pre-compilation
* New localization technique
* Support for 64-bit processors
* Provider class model

November 19, 2007 3.5

released together with Visual Studio 2008


* New data controls (ListView, DataPager)
* Integrated AJAX support
* Support for nested master pages
* JavaScript IntelliSense and debugging
* Support for LINQ

[edit] See also

* ASP.NET state management
* Active Server Pages (ASP) – ASP.NET's predecessor
* ASP master pages
* Yellow Screen of Death – ASP.NET's Exception page
* Java Server Faces (JSF) – web application technology with a similar component based approach for the Java platform



ASP.NET Extensions

* ASP.NET AJAX - Extension for AJAX enabled ASP.NET pages.
* ASP.NET MVC Framework - Extension for building web applications using MVC architecture

Alternatives to .NET and IIS

* Mono - An open source, cross platform implementation of CLR, including an alternative implementation of ASP.NET.
* UltiDev Cassini Web Server - A free web server that can be redistributed with ASP.NET 1.1 and 2.0 applications.

[edit] References

1. ^ http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/2027ewzw.aspx
2. ^ between IIS 7.0 Integrated Mode and Classic mode

[edit] External links
Wikibooks
Wikibooks has more on the topic of
ASP.NET

ASP.NET Resources

* Microsoft's Official ASP.NET 2.0 website
* ASP.NET on MSDN
* ASP.NET 2.0 tutorials and code examples

ASP.NET Team Member blogs

* Scott Guthrie, General Manager - ScottGu's blog
* Nikhil Kothari, Architect - nikhilk.net
* Brian Goldfarb, Product Manager - Brian Goldfarb's Blog
* Shanku Niyogi, Product Unit Manager - shankun.com
* Bertrand Le Roy, Developer - Tales from the Evil Empire
* Harish Ranganathan, Developer Evangelist - Harish Ranganathan

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Upgrading To A VPS From Shared Hosting Environment


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Upgrading To A VPS From Shared Hosting Environment

November 26, 2007 at 6:51 am · Filed under Virtual Private Server

Upgrading from a shared hosting services to a VPS or a Semi-Dedicated server is sometimes a little intriguing. Its not difficult, if one knows the difference between the two environments. Here is an explanation of the hosting environments.

Shared Hosting:-
As the name itself suggests, shared hosting is an environment where several websites are all hosted on one webserver. Each website account gets its own limited share of disk-space, bandwidth, email accounts, FTP accounts, databases et.al. No server administration, security administration & other system tasks to be performed. Its “plug-and-play” .i.e. buy an account & start using it. This only caters to small websites or individual users.

VPS Hosting:-
VPS or Virtual Private Servers is the technology that separates one physical server into several independent virtual servers parts, each isolated from the other. That is why these are called “Virtual Private Servers”. Each VPS has its own set of processes and resource management, and behaves exactly like a stand-alone server. It allows you a larger amount of resources available for use. You also get full administrator level root access & RDP rights for your linux / windows vps respectively. With a VPS, you are under control of all operations & processes running on your server. Thats also the reason why you are responsible for the overall day-to-day administration of the VPS.

Its a perfect balance of a shared environment (on an average about 12 to 15 VPS are hosted on one server node) & a completely independent hosting environment (dedicated servers). Technical Support is still there to help you with critical issues & problems.

Do not cancel your existing account till the time all the websites start resolving from the VPS.

The Actual Difference:-
The data would already be there for you, unless you specifically asked not to move the files. Once you have verified that everything is correct, then you start off using your vps. First-up, ensure that you have the nameservers in place. Depending on your VPS plan, you are allotted a specific number of dedicated IP’s. You would have to change the nameservers for your domain name in your registrar account. Have the same DNS for all your domains hosted. You may now go ahead & set the hostname for the VPS. Once all the sites have the correct nameservers, you just have to go on adding more websites, everything would be done.

The step-up is when you have to take care of administration tasks. System processes (management), repairing the VPS, backing up data & storing it, vps reinstallation, reboot & overall management. Basic knowledge of linux / windows OS would be a plus point. SSH access & Remote desktop connectivity helps you to actually login to the virtual server & perform tweaks, operations or installations. You may install any application or software which is compatible with the VPS OS. It is always a good idea to ask the technical support staff about the compatibility if you are not sure about it. They would advise you accordingly. One has to remember though that since the applications & softwares would be externally sourced, the technical staff wont support issues arising out of them. This is true for most hosting providers.

A plain VPS works just as good as a VPS with a control panel software. The hitch comes when you want to add more websites or create mail accounts & other related activites. Linux / Windows know-how is essential if you have a plain VPS. Often clients complain when they learn that control panel is not default with the VPS. Each VPS comes with its own control panel license & OS.

There is also a difference between “Guaranteed RAM” & “Burstable RAM”. Guaranteed RAM is what you will always have available for use on your vps. However, you might have occassions where your VPS would require more than the available quota of RAM for the system processes & other applications to be functioning. That is when you use the “burstable RAM”. This is not a resource which is guaranteed. It is something which would be available on the server node to be used whenever there is a short time requirement. However, this is subject to the usage of other vps’ hosted on the node. Abundant amount of resources are almost always available on each server node. But the burstable RAM is not something which would always be available. If your VPS happens to use up the additional RAM available on the main node, it would start hampering the performance of other vps’ hosted on the same server.

That’s when you are asked to either move up to a package which has more amount of guaranteed available resources or a dedicated hosting solution.

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Creating your first Website

November 25, 2007 at 7:58 pm · Filed under Web Site Promotion

Article Title: Creating your first Website…

Creating your first Website is really exciting and this article will help you to create your first Website that will lead its way to success. First I will give you some rough key ideas to what your Website should deliver and then go through them in more detail.

• Your Website should have a domain name that is attractive, and will want people to find out more about.
• Your Website should be unique content-wise and updated regularly.
• Your Website should provide something for the visitor, maybe a service or a bargain - for them to want to visit your site again.
• Your Website should have an appealing design, staying as clean as possible and being easy to navigate around.

1.) The first part of starting a Website is having a nice domain name (or site name), a name that tells the visitor in a basic fashion what the site will offer - or what they should expect. A domain name that has just “123.com” doesn’t really explain what the site is about. You need to think of a name that is unique to your Website, a name that isn’t too obvious - but a name that is, a) appealing and gets the person want to visit the website, b) not too long, otherwise the visitors won’t remember the domain name to come back to it, c) explains what the Website is in a nutshell and d) isn’t too obvious - for example a domain name “freesharedresellervpswebhosting.com” is too long, too obvious, too hard to remember - and not appealing at all. Some Websites have short domains like “aaa.com” rather short domains are nice - and rememberable, but unless it’s for AAA batteries - or a company called AAA - it’s not much point. Now, maybe your site or company is called Keyboard Designs, Ltd? How about a domain name called www.keyboarddesigns.com. Although it’s a really long domain name - it’s your company name - and your clients will remember your company name as it’s important to them.

2.) Having content updated regularly is incredibly important if you want your visitors to come back to your Website - and another reason is if you want search engines to keep indexing your Website. Having unique content is important because if you copy other peoples content - or do content similar to others - doesn’t give you a good impression, does it? Provide content that is interesting and will want the visitor to visit your site again. Getting profits out of your site is essential, but adding advertisements everywhere around your site isn’t recommended - because it hides all the interesting content that a visitor wants to see. Another point is adding popups to your site distracts people, especially popups that force visitors to go to another Website - most visitors will press the ‘close browser button immediately after they get popups - and besides, most popup blockers are getting more efficient now.

3.) Having Websites like a blog all about you is very nice - but to be honest, the visitors will eventually get bored and never return. A personal Website is fine, however you want to offer the visitor something - like a service or possibly a competition. These way visitors will want to keep returning. Making a Website aimed at the visitors - maybe an advice column where visitors can get advice and ask questions - is another way of interacting with your visitors. In the long run it’s best to have a Website that keeps updating - like a games Website with more games - which will get your visitors keep returning.

4.) Lets face it, having a Website with an unappealing design is, well… unappealing - and your visitors won’t want to come back. Just imagine, you visited a Website that just has a few links and some content. If there was 2 websites identically the same - one with design, the other without - which one would you prefer to visit? - Exactly. Sticking to designs that has colors that can join each-other easily is best. What I mean by this is having colors that don’t “hurt the eyes” when it’s looked at. Keeping the design as clean as possible is really essential, you need to make sure your designs look the same or similar in most major browsers. Some browsers will render code differently so your designs may look “weird” in one browser, while looking fine in another. Check in many browsers to make sure your design and site looks fine in all major browsers. The browsers that are used the most are Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Opera, Netscape Browser and Safari Browser.

Thank you for reading the article and I hope you have learnt something new out of it, and put these suggestions into action. Remember, if you need super fast Web hosting please feel free to call us on 0808 262 0455 or contact us from http://support.eukhost.com

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Security Tip: Finding working directory of Process

November 20, 2007 at 4:48 am · Filed under Web Hosting, Server Security

Find PID of process
$ps aux | grep
Find out current working directory of the process 1213
$pwdx 1213 >> Output : 1213: /tmp/.abc

This seems to be someone try to hide process directory. You can then try to find out using..
$ls -l /proc/1213/cwd

Output :
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Nov 20 04:35 /proc/1213/cwd -> /var/spool/mqueue

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Importance of On-going Search Engine Optimization-Part I

November 12, 2007 at 3:10 pm · Filed under Web Hosting, SEO Tutorials

SEO campaign on-going basis is inherently important likewise you do often maintenance of your site; it will help you to improve your PR and surpass your position in SERPs. On-site SEO needs level headed work since there are possible reasons for surge and fluctuations in search results due to change in algorithm. Tracking traffic and analyzing the link structure is extremely important since the backlinks degrades overtime, you need to feel the gap with more quality backlinks regularly. Organic search engine listings are most important since there are always sites are competing with you to take leverage and your great position and gain exposure. It is essential that you should more focus on listing in local search engines, local directories, yellow pages to gain popularity to get good results in local search that give you lot of exposure for international search results as well. You should attempt to get more new pages, new inbound links and fresh content, if you are doing PPC leave the keywords that don’t give you results and choose keywords that are less competitive but have worth to target, targeting little narrowly specific keywords for specific niche & demography can bring some significant results.

Also different datacenter get altogether different set of information from your website so the output will be different, however if you focus more on relevancy and uniqueness in content it will give you good output in search results altogether. As discussed earlier the search engine devalue the links or can remove the pages of some site from getting index that have not improved and updated. Since search engines update their indexes and algorithms fairly often, they reduce the value of pages like which have not relevant content, ugly theme, bad linking structure, page error, broken links etc. Always remember the search engine principle are based on to provide the most relevant results to their users the relevancy is to be top up. Ongoing SEO also include link analysis, traffic volume, keyword analysis, quality content, site stats, site referrals, link development, page indexation, competitive analysis, benchmarking, these all factors require regular work to improve search results on-going basis.

To be continued in next post..

-Paul

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Load Balancing Servers

November 1, 2007 at 7:10 pm · Filed under Web Hosting, Web Hosting Articles, Server Security, dedicated linux hosting, Computer Technical Support, Computer Networking

One server responding to all the incoming HTTP requests for a website might not able to handle all the incoming traffic of a website. This would become more difficult if the website becomes more popular. As a result pages will load slowly and users will have to wait for a long time to view web pages. Due to increase in traffic and connections to website there will be need to upgrade the server and it would be no more cost effective.

To improve the server scalability, more servers are needed to add more scalability and distribute load among the servers which is also called as clustering and load distribution among these servers is called as Load balancing. Load balancing applies to all types of servers including application and database servers.

Load Balancing Mechanism

The load balancing mechanism used for spreading HTTP requests is known as IP Spraying. HTTP traffic needs to be evenly distributed when there are multiple servers in the group. It acts as one server to clients for example an internet browser. “Load dispatcher” and “network dispatcher” are the equipments used for IP spraying. You can simply call them as “Load Balancer”.IP Sprayer redirects HTTP requests to a server in a server cluster. It all depend on the type of IP sprayer involved so that the architecture can provide more scalability, load balancing and overcome all the fail-over requirements.

You can have a look at Load Balancing Servers offered by eUKhost.com for a complete load balancing solution.

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Redeployment Questions for Sales Department

October 29, 2007 at 11:35 am · Filed under UK Web Hosting

EUKHOST LIMITED

Sales Department Question Paper

Please Read before you start answering questions:-
1) Each question carries 2 Marks
2) 1 Mark will be deducted incase of wrong answer
3) You have 1 Hours time to answer all 50 questions
4) Multiple answers for a specific question should be chosen only if specified.

SEO Questions:-

1) Name the three most important elements in the head section of an HTML document that are employed by search engines. Check all that apply.
a. Title
b. Meta Description
c. Meta Robots
d. Alternate text

2) Which tag is given the highest priority on a page by search engines?
a) Alt Tag
b) Meta Tags
c) Title Tag
d) No follow tag

3) Which of the following techniques is unethical and can be a reason for banning?
a) Building backlinks.
b) Rewriting the titles to include the target keywords.
c) Creating a doorway page instead a home page.
d) Rewriting dynamic URLs into static.

4) Which of the following techniques are white hat seo techniques? Check all that apply.
a) Hidden Content
b) Quality Inbound Links
c) Link Farming
d) Quality Content

5) For which of the following file types a SEO expert needs to provide an alternative textual description? Check all that apply.
a) html.
b) swf.
c) pdf.
d) gif.

6) What does “organic search results” mean? Check all that apply.
a) It is the same as “natural search results”.
b) These are the results from .org domains only.
c) This is the opposite to paid listings.
d) Organic are the sites that are most recently added to the index.

7) How important are metatags today?
a) Not important at all.
b) They have only minor importance, but it can be neglected.
c) Somehow important.
d) Very important, almost as much as keyword density.

8) You have just launched a new site. Unfortunately, nobody visits it, even search engines’ spiders don’t notice it. What can you do for its SEO success? Check all that apply.
a) Get some fancy fonts for the titles and headings.
b) Add gorgeous Flash movies to the site.
c) Submit the URL of the site to search engines and search directories.
d) Get some free links from the greatest hacker sites because backlinks always boost rankings.

9) You have been doing perfectly in Google but all of a sudden you drop low. What will you do? Check all that apply.
a) Sue Google for the damage they are inflicting me.
b) I will immediately revamp my site to get higher keyword density.
c) I will monitor my site for a month and then I will decide what to do.
d) Since I am so much dependent on Google, I will consider buying paid listings.

10) What is necessary to do for optimizing Flash sites? Check all that apply.
a) Put the most important items in a Flash presentation on the home page
b) Add descriptive metatada to the Flash presentation.
c) Provide alternative pages that describe the contents of the Flash presentation.
d) Have a good keyword density in the Flash presentation.

11) Which of the following techniques is best for dealing with duplicate content?
a) Rewriting the title and the headings.
b) Rearranging the placement of paragraphs.
c) Changing the directory in which a file resides or renaming it in order to make the URL different.
d) Re-wording the text.

12) Which of the options below is the best way to select the keywords to optimize for:
a) See which keywords have the highest density at the sites of your competitors.
b) See in Overture which of the keywords that are related to your site had most searches recently and optimize for them.
c) Write a list of the keywords that come to your mind and optimize for at least 3 of them.
d) Use a tool to determine the theme of your site.


13) What aspects of a hyperlink are important for SEO? Check all that apply.
a) The visibility of the link text.
b) The anchor text, especially the keywords in it.
c) The place from which the link originates.
d) The image that is used as an anchor for the hyperlink.

14) If you have a site that is targeted at a particular country only, which of the following are recommendable to do in order to rank well in country specific search results? Check all that apply.
a) Add the name of the country in all page properties
b) The site should be hosted in the same country, so that its IP falls in the range of IPs that are specific for this country.
c) Submit the site to local search engines and directories.
d) Use geotargeting.

15) What is meant by “Google bombing”?
a) Submitting the site again and again in order to include it in Google’s index.
b) Multiple sites linking to the same site, with the same anchor text in order to get high ranking for the keyword in the anchor text.
c) Extensively using the word “Google” on your pages in order to get high rankings with Google.

16) What does the term “Sandbox” mean in SEO?
a) The box with paid ads that appear when you perform a search.
b) The first 10 search results for a particular keyword.
c) This is where sites are kept till they get mature enough to be included in the top rankings for a particular keyword.
d) A special category of sites that are listed in kid-safe searches.

17) How long is the period of keeping sites sandboxed?
a) 4 weeks.
b) 3 months.
c) 1 year.
d) Not defined.

18) What are “supplemental results”?
a) Paid listings that appear for a particular keyword.
b) Listings that do not have all the keywords in them.
c) Filtered results that are similar to the ones already shown.
d) Additional search results that will be served on your request.

19) When do you apply for re-inclusion in a search engine’s index?
a) When you have made changes to your site.
b) When you have changed your hosting provider and the IP address of your site.
c) After you have been banned from the search engine for black hat practices and you have corrected your wrongdoings.
d) When you are not happy with your current ratings.

20) What are the advantages of submitting sites to web directories? Check all that apply.
a) Submitting to directories increases your rating with search engines.
b) By submitting to a directory, you get a backlink to your site.
c) By submitting to a directory your site gets certified.
d) When your site is listed in search directories, this increases the chances that search engines will index it sooner, compared to when it is not listed.

Web Hosting Questions:-

1) Where is eUKhost Datacenter located in UK?
a) Durham
b) London
c) Maidenhead
d) Edinburgh

2) What is the name of our Datacenter where we have setup our new high configuration Q6600 Servers ?
a) GNAX
b) Bluesquare
c) Fastservers
d) Rackspace

3) Which of these control panels is not offered with our Dedicated Servers?
a) cPanel
b) Plesk
c) LXAdmin
d) Hosting Controller

4) Each Server in our datacenter is setup on ________ Mbps, fully-switched port on an edge switch. (Fill in the blank)
a) 1
b) 10
c) 100
d) 1000

5) What is the percentage of commission we offer to our affiliates (eUKhost)?
a) 5 %
b) 10 %
c) 15%
d) 20%

6) What Brand of servers do we use for our servers?
a) HP
b) Dell
c) Compaq
d) Sun Microsystems

7) How many MySQL or MSSQL databases can a client create on any of our hosting plans?
a) 10
b) 50
c) 100
d) Unlimited

8) If a client wishes to host multiple website on our shared hosting plan what would you suggest him? Check all that apply.
a) Suggest him to use separate package for each domain
b) Use Add-on domain function
c) Suggest him a reseller or a vps
d) Multiple website hosting is restricted on shared hosting

9) In the case of ______ domains transfer, you will have to change the IPS TAG to ENOM to get the domains transferred to our hosting.
a) All UK TLDs
b) .com, .net, .info, .org, .biz
c) .us
d) .in

10) Which of these is not a VPS platform?
a) OpenVZ
b) Virtuozzo
c) Xen
d) Zen

11) Which of the following shopping carts can be installed through Fantastico ? Check all that apply
a) Zen Cart
b) osCommerce
c) RealCart
d) StaticCart

12) What is Drupal ?
a) HTML Editor
b) Content Management System
c) Community Forum Software
d) Operating System

13) Is it possible to create sub reseller account under main reseller account ?
a) Yes
b) No

14) Do we provide SSH / RDP access with our semi-dedicated plans ?
a) Yes
b) No
c) Optional

15) This locates a specific page on the World Wide Web.
a) IP address
b) Domain Name
c) URL
d) Path

16) This term means dividing the amount of work that a computer has to do between two or more computers so that more work gets done in the same amount of time and, in general, all users get served faster.
a) Routing
b) Shared hosting
c) Load Balancing
d) Colocation

17) In the Web hosting business, this refers to the rental and exclusive use of a computer that includes a Web server, related software, and connection
to the Internet, housed in the Web hosting company’s Datacenter.
a) Reseller hosting
b) VPS Hosting
c) Co-location
d) Dedicated hosting

18) Which of the following databases is supported on both Linux and Windows Hosting?
a) MSSQL
b) MySQL
c) MS ACCESS
d) ODBC

19) How many gigabytes are there in a terabyte?
a) 100 GB
b) 1000 GB
c) 10000 GB
d) 100000 GB

20) What is MySQL?
a) MySQL is a popular database tool that developers use.
b) MySQL is another name for SQLServer, since they were both created at the same type by competing companies.
c) MySQL is the sequel to a romance novel written by a survivor of the Titanic disaster, whose genius was not realized until after she died a few years ago.

21) Using which login credential do customers login in their client area of our modernbill
a) username & password
b) email address & password
c) domain & password
e) none of the above

22) Fantastico is a product of ?
a) cPanel.net
b) swsoft.com
d) p-soft.net
d) netenberg.com

22) what is the approx GBP to USD currency conversion rate right now ?
a) £1 = $2
b) £1 = $1.5
c) £1 = $2.5
d) £1 = $3

23) .ch domain TLD belongs to which country ?
a. China
b. Switzerland
c. Czhecoslovakia
d. Chile

24). .mod.uk domains are reserved for ?
a. Ministry of Defence and HM Forces public sites
b. government (central and local)
c. network moderators use only
d. UK Registered companies.

25). .me.uk domains are for ?
a. Ministry of Defense and HM Forces public sites
b. government (central and local)
c. personal domains
d. Aeronautics.

26). .eu domain registry is managed by ?
a. European Union
b. Nominet
c. ICANN
d. ARIN

27). .com and other gTLD domains registry is managed by ?
a. ENOM
b. ICANN
c. ARIN
d. Networksolutions

28) Which of the following is mandatory to run a website?
a) Domain Name
b) IP Address
c) Web Hosting Company
d) Browser

29) A Domain name can have maximum how many characters?
a) 64
b) 48
c) 32
d) 128

30) Biggest number that an IP address can have in any of its octet is ?
a) 256
b) 255
c) 264
d) 254

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Posted by lockat at 11:48 AM 0 comments

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Posted by lockat at 11:44 AM 0 comments

Apache HTTP Server

Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to simply as Apache, is a web server notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. Apache was the first viable alternative to the Netscape Communications Corporation web server (currently known as Sun Java System Web Server), and has since evolved to rival other Unix-based web servers in terms of functionality and performance. Since April 1996 Apache has been the most popular HTTP server on the World Wide Web; since March 2006 however it has experienced a steady decline of its market share,[1] lost mostly against Microsoft Internet Information Services and the .NET platform. As of October 2007 Apache served 47.73% of all websites.[2]

The project's name was chosen for two reasons:[3] out of respect for the Native American Indian tribe of Apache (Indé), well-known for their endurance and their skills in warfare,[4] and due to the project's roots as a set of patches to the codebase of NCSA HTTPd 1.3 - making it "a patchy" server.[5]

Apache is developed and maintained by an open community of developers under the auspices of the Apache Software Foundation. The application is available for a wide variety of operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Novell NetWare and Unix and Unix-like operating systems such as FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris and Mac OS X. Released under the Apache License, Apache is free software / open source software.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 History
* 2 Features
* 3 Usage
* 4 License
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 External links

[edit] History

The first version of the Apache web server was created by Robert McCool, who was heavily involved with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications web server, known simply as NCSA HTTPd. When Rob left NCSA in mid-1994, the development of httpd stalled, leaving a variety of patches for improvements circulating through e-mails.

Rob McCool was not alone in his efforts. Several other developers helped form the original "Apache Group": Brian Behlendorf, Roy T. Fielding, Rob Hartill, David Robinson, Cliff Skolnick, Randy Terbush, Robert S. Thau, Andrew Wilson, Eric Hagberg, Frank Peters, and Nicolas Pioch.

Version 2 of the Apache server was a substantial re-write of much of the Apache 1.x code, with a strong focus on further modularization and the development of a portability layer, the Apache Portable Runtime. The Apache 2.x core has several major enhancements over Apache 1.x. These include UNIX threading, better support for non-Unix platforms (such as Microsoft Windows), a new Apache API, and IPv6 support.[6] The first alpha release of Apache 2 was in March 2000, with the first general availability release on 6 April 2002.[7]

Version 2.2 introduced a new authorization API that allows for more flexibility. It also features improved cache modules and proxy modules.[8]

[edit] Features

Apache supports a variety of features, many implemented as compiled modules which extend the core functionality. These can range from server-side programming language support to authentication schemes. Some common language interfaces support mod_perl, mod_python, Tcl, and PHP. Popular authentication modules include mod_access, mod_auth, and mod_digest. A sample of other features include SSL and TLS support (mod_ssl), a proxy module, a useful URL rewriter (also known as a rewrite engine, implemented under mod_rewrite), custom log files (mod_log_config), and filtering support (mod_include and mod_ext_filter). Apache logs can be analyzed through a web browser using free scripts such as AWStats/W3Perl or Visitors.

Virtual hosting allows one Apache installation to serve many different actual websites. For example, one machine, with one Apache installation could simultaneously serve www.example.com, www.test.com, test47.test-server.test.com, etc.

Apache features configurable error messages, DBMS-based authentication databases, and content negotiation. It is also supported by several graphical user interfaces (GUIs) which permit easier, more intuitive configuration of the server.

[edit] Usage

Apache is primarily used to serve both static content and dynamic Web pages on the World Wide Web. Many web applications are designed expecting the environment and features that Apache provides.

Apache is the web server component of the popular LAMP web server application stack, alongside MySQL, and the PHP/Perl/Python programming languages.

Apache is redistributed as part of various proprietary software packages including the Oracle Database or the IBM WebSphere application server. Mac OS X integrates Apache as its built-in web server and as support for its WebObjects application server. It is also supported in some way by Borland in the Kylix and Delphi development tools. Apache is included with Novell NetWare 6.5, where it is the default web server.

Apache is used for many other tasks where content needs to be made available in a secure and reliable way. One example is sharing files from a personal computer over the Internet. A user who has Apache installed on their desktop can put arbitrary files in the Apache's document root which can then be shared.

Programmers developing web applications often use a locally installed version of Apache in order to preview and test code as it is being developed.

Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) is the main competitor to Apache, trailed by Sun Microsystems' Sun Java System Web Server and a host of other applications such as Zeus Web Server.

[edit] License

Main article: Apache License

The software license under which software from the Apache Foundation is distributed is a distinctive part of the Apache HTTP Server's history and presence in the open source software community. The Apache License allows for the distribution of both open and closed source derivations of the source code.

The Free Software Foundation does not consider the Apache License to be compatible with version 2 of the GNU General Public License (GPL) in that software licensed under the Apache License cannot be integrated with software that is distributed under the GPL:

This is a free software license but it is incompatible with the GPL. The Apache Software License is incompatible with the GPL because it has a specific requirement that is not in the GPL: it has certain patent termination cases that the GPL does not require. We don't think those patent termination cases are inherently a bad idea, but nonetheless they are incompatible with the GNU GPL.
—http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html

However, version 3 of the GPL includes a provision (Section 7e) which allows it to be compatible with licenses that have patent retaliation clauses, including the Apache License.

The name Apache is a registered trademark and may only be used with the trademark holder's express permission.[9]

[edit] See also
Free software Portal

* Comparison of web servers
* .htaccess
* Stronghold (software)
* ApacheBench
* POSSE project

[edit] References

1. ^ Webservers' Market Shares. Netcraft. Retrieved on 2007-09-20.
2. ^ October 2007. Netcraft. Retrieved on 2007-10-13.
3. ^ http://www.mailarchives.org/list/apache-httpd-docs/msg/2001/00476
4. ^ http://www.apache.org/foundation/faq.html#name
5. ^ http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196900465
6. ^ http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/new_features_2_0.html
7. ^ http://www.apacheweek.com/features/ap2
8. ^ http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/new_features_2_2.html
9. ^ http://www.apache.org/foundation/licence-FAQ.html#Marks

[edit] External links

* Apache HTTP Server official website
* Apache News
* Apache Wiki
* Apache Lounge: Apache2 on Windows
* Debugging Apache web server problems
* URL rewriting guide

[hide]
This box: v • d • e
Apache Software Foundation
Top level projects ActiveMQ · Ant · Apache HTTP Server · APR · Beehive · Camel · Cayenne · Cocoon · Commons · Directory · Excalibur · Felix · Forrest · Geronimo · Gump · Harmony · HiveMind · iBATIS · Jackrabbit · James · Lenya · Maven · mod_perl · MyFaces · OFBiz · OpenEJB · OpenJPA · POI · Roller · Shale · SpamAssassin · Struts · Tapestry · Tomcat · Velocity · WebWork 2 · Wicket · XMLBeans
Other projects Jakarta Project · Apache Lucene · Apache XML · Apache Incubator
Notable sub-projects BCEL · BSF · Cactus · JMeter · Slide · Xerces · Batik · FOP · Log4j · XAP · River · ServiceMix · Log4Net · Abdera · Ivy · CXF
License: Apache License · Website: http://apache.org/

Posted by lockat at 11:43 AM 0 comments

Web server

The term web server can mean one of two things:

1. A computer program that is responsible for accepting HTTP requests from clients, which are known as web browsers, and serving them HTTP responses along with optional data contents, which usually are web pages such as HTML documents and linked objects (images, etc.).
2. A computer that runs a computer program which provides the functionality described in the first sense of the term.

Contents
[hide]

* 1 Common features
* 2 Origin of returned content
* 3 Path translation
* 4 Performances
* 5 Load limits
o 5.1 Overload causes
o 5.2 Overload symptoms
o 5.3 Anti-overload techniques
* 6 Historical notes
* 7 Market structure
* 8 See also
* 9 External links

[edit] Common features
The rack of web servers hosting the My Opera Community site on the Internet. The Opera Community rack, as seen to the left. From the top, user file storage (content of files.myopera.com), "bigma" (the master MySQL database server), and two IBM blade centers containing multi-purpose machines (Apache front ends, Apache back ends, slave MySQL database servers, load balancers, file servers, cache servers and sync masters.
The rack of web servers hosting the My Opera Community site on the Internet. The Opera Community rack, as seen to the left. From the top, user file storage (content of files.myopera.com), "bigma" (the master MySQL database server), and two IBM blade centers containing multi-purpose machines (Apache front ends, Apache back ends, slave MySQL database servers, load balancers, file servers, cache servers and sync masters.

Although web server programs differ in detail, they all share some basic common features.

1. HTTP: every web server program operates by accepting HTTP requests from the client, and providing an HTTP response to the client. The HTTP response usually consists of an HTML document, but can also be a raw file, an image, or some other type of document (defined by MIME-types); if some error is found in client request or while trying to serve the request, a web server has to send an error response which may include some custom HTML or text messages to better explain the problem to end users.
2. Logging: usually web servers have also the capability of logging some detailed information, about client requests and server responses, to log files; this allows the webmaster to collect statistics by running log analyzers on log files.

In practice many web servers implement the following features also:

1. Authentication, optional authorization request (request of user name and password) before allowing access to some or all kind of resources.
2. Handling of not only static content (file content recorded in server's filesystem(s)) but of dynamic content too by supporting one or more related interfaces (SSI, CGI, SCGI, FastCGI, JSP, PHP, ASP, ASP .NET, Server API such as NSAPI, ISAPI, etc.).
3. HTTPS support (by SSL or TLS) to allow secure (encrypted) connections to the server on the standard port 443 instead of usual port 80.
4. Content compression (i.e. by gzip encoding) to reduce the size of the responses (to lower bandwidth usage, etc.).
5. Virtual hosting to serve many web sites using one IP address.
6. Large file support to be able to serve files whose size is greater than 2 GB on 32 bit OS.
7. Bandwidth throttling to limit the speed of responses in order to not saturate the network and to be able to serve more clients.

[edit] Origin of returned content

The origin of the content sent by server is called:

* static if it comes from an existing file lying on a filesystem;
* dynamic if it is dynamically generated by some other program or script or Application Programming Interface called by the web server.

Serving static content is usually much faster (from 2 to 100 times) than serving dynamic content, especially if the latter involves data pulled from a database.

[edit] Path translation

Web servers are able to map the path component of a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) into:

* a local file system resource (for static requests);
* an internal or external program name (for dynamic requests).

For a static request the URL path specified by the client is relative to the Web server's root directory.

Consider the following URL as it would be requested by a client:

http://www.example.com/path/file.html

The client's web browser will translate it into a connection to www.example.com with the following HTTP 1.1 request:

GET /path/file.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com

The web server on www.example.com will append the given path to the path of its root directory. On Unix machines, this is commonly /var/www/htdocs. The result is the local file system resource:

/var/www/htdocs/path/file.html

The web server will then read the file, if it exists, and send a response to the client's web browser. The response will describe the content of the file and contain the file itself.

[edit] Performances

Web servers (programs) are supposed to serve requests quickly from more than one TCP/IP connection at a time.

Main key performance parameters (measured under a varying load of clients and requests per client), are:

* number of requests per second (depending on the type of request, etc.);
* latency response time in milliseconds for each new connection or request;
* throughput in bytes per second (depending on file size, cached or not cached content, available network bandwidth, etc.).

Above three parameters vary noticeably depending on the number of active connections, so a fourth parameter is the concurrency level supported by a web server under a specific configuration.

Last but not least, the specific server model used to implement a web server program can bias the performance and scalability level that can be reached under heavy load or when using high end hardware (many CPUs, disks, etc.).

Performance of a web server is typically measured using one of automated load testing tools.

[edit] Load limits

A web server (program) has defined load limits, because it can handle only a limited number of concurrent client connections (usually between 2 and 60,000, by default between 500 and 1,000) per IP address (and IP port) and it can serve only a certain maximum number of requests per second depending on:

* its own settings;
* the HTTP request type;
* content origin (static or dynamic);
* the fact that the served content is or is not cached;
* the hardware and software limits of the OS where it is working.

When a web server is near to or over its limits, it becomes overloaded and thus unresponsive.

[edit] Overload causes
A daily graph of a web server's load, indicating a spike in the load early in the day.
A daily graph of a web server's load, indicating a spike in the load early in the day.

At any time web servers can be overloaded because of:

* Too much legitimate web traffic (i.e. thousands or even millions of clients hitting the web site in a short interval of time. e.g. Slashdot effect);
* DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks;
* Computer worms that sometimes cause abnormal traffic because of millions of infected computers (not coordinated among them);
* XSS viruses can cause high traffic because of millions of infected browsers and/or web servers;
* Internet web robots traffic not filtered / limited on large web sites with very few resources (bandwidth, etc.);
* Internet (network) slowdowns, so that client requests are served more slowly and the number of connections increases so much that server limits are reached;
* Web servers (computers) partial unavailability, this can happen because of required / urgent maintenance or upgrade, HW or SW failures, back-end (i.e. DB) failures, etc.; in these cases the remaining web servers get too much traffic and become overloaded.

[edit] Overload symptoms

The symptoms of an overloaded web server are:

* requests are served with (possibly long) delays (from 1 second to a few hundred seconds);
* 500, 502, 503, 504 HTTP errors are returned to clients (sometimes also unrelated 404 error or even 408 error may be returned);
* TCP connections are refused or reset (interrupted) before any content is sent to clients;
* in very rare cases, only partial contents are sent (but this behavior may well be considered a bug, even if it usually depends on unavailable system resources).

[edit] Anti-overload techniques

To partially overcome above load limits and to prevent overload, most popular web sites use common techniques like:

* managing network traffic, by using:
o Firewalls to block unwanted traffic coming from bad IP sources or having bad patterns;
o HTTP traffic managers to drop, redirect or rewrite requests having bad HTTP patterns;
o Bandwidth management and traffic shaping, in order to smooth down peaks in network usage;
* deploying web cache techniques;
* using different domain names to serve different (static and dynamic) content by separate Web servers, i.e.:
o

http://images.example.com

o

http://www.example.com

* using different domain names and/or computers to separate big files from small and medium sized files; the idea is to be able to fully cache small and medium sized files and to efficiently serve big or huge (over 10 - 1000 MB) files by using different settings;
* using many Web servers (programs) per computer, each one bound to its own network card and IP address;
* using many Web servers (computers) that are grouped together so that they act or are seen as one big Web server, see also: Load balancer;
* adding more hardware resources (i.e. RAM, disks) to each computer;
* tuning OS parameters for hardware capabilities and usage;
* using more efficient computer programs for web servers, etc.;
* using other workarounds, especially if dynamic content is involved.

[edit] Historical notes
The world's first web server.
The world's first web server.

In 1989 Tim Berners-Lee proposed to his employer CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) a new project, which had the goal of easing the exchange of information between scientists by using a hypertext system. As a result of the implementation of this project, in 1990 Berners-Lee wrote two programs:

* a browser called WorldWideWeb;
* the world's first web server, which ran on NeXTSTEP.

Between 1991 and 1994 the simplicity and effectiveness of early technologies used to surf and exchange data through the World Wide Web helped to port them to many different operating systems and spread their use among lots of different social groups of people, first in scientific organizations, then in universities and finally in industry.

In 1994 Tim Berners-Lee decided to constitute the World Wide Web Consortium to regulate the further development of the many technologies involved (HTTP, HTML, etc.) through a standardization process.

The following years are recent history which has seen an exponential growth of the number of web sites and servers.

[edit] Market structure

Given below is a list of top Web server software vendors published in a Netcraft survey in September 2007. x xxxx
Vendor Product Web Sites Hosted
Apache Apache 67,898,632
Microsoft IIS 47,226,195
Google GWS 6,616,713
Sun Microsystems Sun-ONE-Web-Server 1,997,150
Oversee Oversee 1,601,209
lighttpd lighttpd 1,515,963
Others - 8,296,292
Total - 135,152,154

There are hundreds of different web server programs available, many of which are specialized for very specific purposes, so the fact that a web server is not very popular does not necessarily mean that it has a lot of bugs or poor performance.

See Category:Web server software for a longer list of HTTP server programs.

[edit] See also

* Comparison of web servers
* Tiny web servers
* SSI, CGI, SCGI, FastCGI, PHP, Java Servlet, JavaServer Pages, ASP, ASP .NET, Server API
* Virtual hosting
* LAMP (software bundle)
* Web log analysis software
* Web hosting service
* Application server
* Mac OS X Server
* HTTP compression

[edit] External links

* RFC 2616, the Request for Comments document that defines the HTTP 1.1 protocol.
* HTTP Blog Fully devoted resource to web servers.

[hide]
v • d • e
Website management
Concepts Drop registrar · Overselling · Viewable With Any Browser · Web content · Web content management system · Web hosting service · Web server · Webmaster
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Domain managers and registrars AusRegistry · CZ.NIC · CIRA · CNNIC · DENIC · DNS Belgium · Domainz · ENom · Go Daddy · Melbourne IT · Museum Domain Management Association · Network Solutions · NeuStar · OLM.net · Register.com · Tucows · Web.com
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Posted by lockat at 11:42 AM 0 comments

File server

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Please discuss this issue on the talk page. This article has been tagged since March 2007.

In telecommunication, the term file server has the following meanings:


* In the client/server model, a file server is a computer responsible for the central storage and management of data files so that other computers on the same network can access the files. A file server allows users to share information over a network without having to physically transfer files by floppy diskette or some other external storage device. Any computer can be configured to be a host and act as a file server. In its simplest form, a file server may be an ordinary PC that handles requests for files and sends them over the network. In a more sophisticated network, a file server might be a dedicated network-attached storage (NAS) device that also serves as a remote hard disk drive for other computers, allowing anyone on the network to store files on it as if to their own hard drive.

* A form of disk storage that hosts files within a network; file servers do not need to be high-end but must have enough disk space to incorporate a large amount of data. Many people mistake file servers for a high-end storage system, but in reality, file servers do not need to possess great power or super fast computer specifications.

* A computer program that allows different programs, running on other computers, to access the files of that computer

* In common parlance, the term file server refers specifically to a computer on which a user can map or mount a disk drive or directory so that the directory appears to be on the machine at which the user is sitting. Additionally, on this type of file server, the user can read or write a file as though it were part of the file system of the user's computer.

Files and directories on the remote computer are usually accessed using a particular protocol, such as WebDAV, SMB, CIFS, NFS, Appletalk or their mutations.

* Although files can be sent to and received from most other computers unless their primary function is access by the above means, they are generally not considered file servers as such.

[edit] File and print

Traditionally, file and print services have been combined on the same computers due to similar computing requirements for both functions.[dubious – discuss] Usually, such computers are distinct from application and database servers, which have different, usually more processor-intensive, requirements. However, as computing power increases and file serving requirements remain relatively constant, it is more common to see these functions combined on the same machine.

[edit] Security

File servers generally offer some form of system security to limit access to files to specific users or groups. In large organizations, this is a task usually delegated to what is known as directory services such as Novell's eDirectory or Microsoft's Active Directory.

These servers work within the hierarchical computing environment which treat users, directories, computers, applications and files as distinct but related entities on the network and grant access based on user or group credentials. In many cases, the directory service spans many file servers, potentially hundreds for large organizations. In the past, and in smaller organizations, authentication can take place directly to the server itself.

Posted by lockat at 11:41 AM 0 comments

Communications server

For Microsoft's enterprise real-time communications server product, see Microsoft Office Communications Server.

Communications servers are open, standards-based computing systems that operate as a carrier-grade common platform for a wide range of communications applications and allow equipment providers to add value at many levels of the system architecture.

Based on industry-managed standards such as AdvancedTCA®, MicroTCATM, Carrier Grade Linux and Service AvailabilityTM Forum specifications, communications servers are the foundational platform upon which equipment providers build network infrastructure elements for deployments such as IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), IPTV and wireless broadband (e.g. WiMAX).

By driving down infrastructure costs, improving time to market, and shifting user resources toward the development of new applications and services, communications servers will help accelerate the cost effective deployment of converged services.

Support for communications servers as a category of server is developing rapidly throughout the communications industry. Standards bodies, industry associations, vendor alliance programs, hardware and software manufacturers, communications server vendors and users are all part of an increasingly robust communications server ecosystem.

Regardless of their specific, differentiated features, communications servers have the following attributes: open, flexible, carrier-grade, and communications-focused.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Attributes
o 1.1 Open
o 1.2 Flexible
o 1.3 Carrier Grade
o 1.4 Communications Focus
* 2 Industry-managed standards
o 2.1 AdvancedTCA
o 2.2 AdvancedMC®
o 2.3 MicroTCA
o 2.4 Carrier Grade Linux
o 2.5 HPI and AIS
* 3 Industry associations
o 3.1 SCOPE Alliance
o 3.2 Communications Platforms Trade Association
* 4 Vendor alliance programs
o 4.1 Intel® Communications Alliance
o 4.2 Motorola Communications Server Alliance

[edit] Attributes

[edit] Open

* Based on industry-managed open standards
* Broad, multi-vendor ecosystem
* Industry certified interoperability
* Availability of tools that facilitate development and integration of applications at the standardized interfaces
* Multiple competitive options for standards-based modules


[edit] Flexible

* Architected and designed to easily incorporate application-specific added value at all levels of the solution
* Can be rapidly repurposed as needs change to protect customer investment
* Multi-level, scalable, bladed architecture
* Meets needs of multiple industries beyond telecommunications, such as medical imaging, defense and aerospace

[edit] Carrier Grade

* Designed for
o Longevity of supply
o Extended lifecycle (>10 years) support
o High availability (>5NINES)
* “Non-disruptively” upgradeable and updateable
* Hard real time capability to ensure quality of service for critical traffic
* Meets network building regulations

[edit] Communications Focus

* Architected as common platform for a wide range of communications applications
* Optimized configurations for:
o Control plane processing
+ E.g. radio network controller (RNC), IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) CSCF
o Applications Servers and network embedded databases
+ Including HSS, HLR/VLR
o Packet termination and routing
+ Including signaling gateways, session border controllers
o Multimedia servers and translators
+ Including media servers, media gateways, video encoders, video on demand servers
* Extensive range of telecom I/O options
* Including ATM, Ethernet, SONET, T1/E1, T3
* Sourced as integrated and pre-validated systems to streamline supply chain and simplify integration and testing

[edit] Industry-managed standards

Several industry-managed standards are critical to the success of communications servers, including:

[edit] AdvancedTCA

The Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (ATCA) is a series of PCI Industrial Computers Manufacturers Group (PICMG) specifications, targeted to meet the requirements for carrier grade communications equipment. This series of specifications incorporates the latest trends in high speed interconnect technologies, next generation processors and improved reliability, manageability and serviceability.

[edit] AdvancedMC®

The PICMG Advanced Mezzanine Card specification defines the base-level requirements for a wide-range of high-speed mezzanine cards optimized for, but not limited to, AdvancedTCA Carriers. AdvancedMC enhances AdvancedTCA’s flexibility by extending its high-bandwidth, multi-protocol interface to individual hot-swappable modules.

[edit] MicroTCA

This PICMG specification provides a framework for combining AdvancedMC modules directly, without the need for an AdvancedTCA or custom carrier. MicroTCA is aimed at smaller equipment – such as wireless base stations, Wi-Fi and WiMAX radios, and VoIP access gateways where small physical size low entry cost, and scalability are key requirements.

[edit] Carrier Grade Linux

An enhanced version of Linux for use in a highly available, secure, scalable, and maintainable carrier grade system. The specification is managed by the CGL Working Group of the Open Source Development Labs.

[edit] HPI and AIS

These Service Availability Forum (SA Forum) specifications define standard interfaces for telecom platform management and high-availability software.

The Hardware Platform Interface (HPI) specification defines the interface between high availability middleware and the underlying hardware and operating system.

At a higher layer than HPI, the Application Interface Specification (AIS) defines the application programming interface between the high availability middleware and the application. AIS allows an application to run on multiple computing modules, and applications that support AIS can migrate more easily between computing platforms from different manufacturers that support the standard.

In addition to the standards development organizations mentioned above, four industry associations / vendor alliance programs are playing key roles in the development of the communications server ecosystem.

[edit] Industry associations

[edit] SCOPE Alliance

SCOPE Alliance is an industry alliance committed to accelerating the deployment of carrier grade base platforms for service provider applications. Its mission is to help, enable and promote the availability of open carrier grade base platforms based on Commercial-Off-The-Shelf hardware / software and Free Open Source Software building blocks, and to promote interoperability to better serve Service Providers and consumers.

[edit] Communications Platforms Trade Association

The Communications Platforms Trade Association (CP-TA) is an association of communications platforms and building block providers dedicated to accelerating the adoption of SIG-governed, open specification-based communications platforms through interoperability certification. With industry collaboration, the CP-TA plans to drive a mainstream market for open industry standards-based communications platforms by certifying interoperable products.

[edit] Vendor alliance programs

[edit] Intel® Communications Alliance

The Intel® Communications Alliance is a community of communications and embedded developers and solutions providers committed to the development of modular, standards-based solutions on Intel technologies.

[edit] Motorola Communications Server Alliance

The Motorola Communications Server Alliance is an ecosystem of technology, service and solution providers aligned to provide standards-based solution elements validated with Motorola’s communications servers. Alliance participants receive access to Motorola embedded communications computing product roadmaps, development systems, and participate in marketing activities with Motorola.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_server"