Hi Trent,

I have a test database hosted on WebHost4Life.com.  I have successfully connected to it from my windows application using SF and I have edited and saved data!  My URL is www.prospecthelper.com.  They have given me a default.asp page located in a directory d:\hosting\member\jpagley\site1.  When I type in www.prospecthelper.com in the browser it is loading this page. 

As you mention for setting up ES, is this the directory I upload the ES Zip file and extract it into this directory?  Also, once I extract this zip file, where do I add the license file?

Being new to all of this, do you recommend I rename the folder "site1" to something else or create a subfolder to keep the ES web service separate from my main official ProspectHelper.com site which I am going to create later?  Just looking for best practices here.

Also you mention in another post, it would be easy for me to setup a way for my app to check a version via a web service and have my app automatically download and install the latest version from this site if they have permissions.  How do I accomplish this?

One other question.  I am going to have multiple databases hosted on this site.  When using ES, I believe I can have different clients connected to different hosted databases.  The only limitation would be the number ES licenses I have purchased determines the number of client machines that can connect to different databases using ES.  Is this correct?

All the help you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Jeff

Trent,

Thanks for the info.  I am going to setup the test and I will take you up on your offer to help me when I get stuck.

Jeff

Some of your questions are more training than questions. So let me answer these as best as I can and just point you in the right direction:







Correct. I have added a Development SDK license to your account. You will just need to login to the My Account area and create the license file once you know what host name you are going to use for testing (i.e. es.mytestsite.com).







Correct.







Correct. You will setup a hostname to which you will access this ES web service (same concept as a web site). So when you setup your hosting environment, you will assign a host name to it like www.jeffpagley.com. Once this is done, you can setup your ES license in the SF My Account area. In order to setup the ES site, though, even before you get your license, you will want to use the ES ZIP file instead of the install. You will just extract this ZIP into your hosted site. After that, you will add your license file to the site, and you should be good to go as far as initial setup is concerned. You will still need to define your data source connection in the config file (look at the docs on this as it shows how to setup all of your config files).







Taking advantage of an ES server is just a matter of changing your connection within the SF app to use an enterprise data source item instead of an SQL data source item. The help docs (and the sample that comes with SF) should be able to get you through this step. If you get stuck then post where you are stuck and we will get you through. But once this is done and your ES server is setup...then you are running.



This entire process is not too complicated. So if you catch yourself getting bogged down, then post where you are stuck and we will help you through the process as best we can. The hardest part in a scenario like this is getting the hosting site configured, etc. which isn't too hard either.



Good luck!

Hi SF,

I have already posted these questions earlier, but I did not get a reply to them.  I want setup a test for hosting my database on the internet and I had these questions about the steps or how tos:

1. I believe my SF license gives me 2 ES licenses to do testing is that correct? 

2. Purchase a basic SQL Server Hosting package at HostMySite...Right?

3. Setup ES on HostMySite...How?

4. Implement ES logic in my windows app...How?

5. What else am I missing?

Thanks,

Jeff

If they support ASP.NET web services and SQL Server hosting, then you should be good.

Hi Charles,

Thanks for the info.  I will check them out. 

This hosting site says they support IIS/ASP.NET and I assume they will support SF Enterprise Server.  Am I correct to assume this?

Thanks,

Jeff

For more limited needs webhosting4life.com has completely ASP .NET 3.5 / windowserver 2008 sites with SQL Server (not mySQL) for 10 buck a month.



Worth checking out. Supports subdomains etc 5 sql databases ( and each additional is a couple bucks a month)



Can use management studio. Another package for 20 a month lets you install com

Trent/Keith,

Thanks so much for the quick answers.  I am going to follow your advice.  What I think I will do as you suggested is setup my database at HostMySite and test this out.  

Trent - I believe my SF license gives me 2 ES licenses to do testing is that correct? 

I know this is probably a loaded question, but what else do I need to do to get this working? 

1. Purchase a basic SQL Server Hosting package at HostMySite...Right?

2. Setup ES on HostMySite...How?

3. Implement ES logic in my windows app...How?

4. What else am I missing?

Thanks,

Jeff

1. We have a dedicated server with HostMySite.

2. We pay in the ballpark of $800 a month that includes the bandwidth, SQL processor license, managed backups and patches, etc.

3. SF Enterprise, we tried straight SQL via web services and direct connection, both were too slow. As soon as we plumbed in ES (easy) we saw a dramatic performance improvement. Our application actually scans images and saves them to the database on the web server and it is fast.

4. Big question. I think getting it right includes equal parts research and testing the environment, and the realization that you may not get it right the first time and have to rethink. That worked for us.

Good luck.

Keith Chisarik

You can use most any hosting site. GoDaddy has some really inexpensive options with unlimited bandwidth. If you are going to have a really complex setup, then you can host a machine there, and even that is not expensive. The will setup the machine to specs, etc. But this may be overkill for your needs.







Depends on if you need a full version of SQL Standard or if SQL Express will work for your needs. Again, you will have to check into the hosting sites themselves, but this is not an overly expensive endeavor.







If you are going to do this, then you will definitely want to use ES. Direct connections to an external SQL Server will not work in a production environment like this due to limited bandwidth. The TDS stream alone will consume most of your bandwidth. So you will definitely want a web service that does all of the compression and reformatting of any type of TDS stream for you. In this example, Enterprise Server.







The number one thing I would recommend is to make sure that you are not trying to create a direct connection to SQL. This will set you up for failure from the beginning if you do this. However, if you setup a sounds machine that is hosted someplace with guarenteed up time and lots of bandwidth, then put ES on top of it, then you will be in great shape.