Clue Design

Official blog of the Web Design and Development company based in Perth, Australia.

Archive for the ‘.Net Programming’ Category

Benefits of .NET 2.0 and SQL server vs PHP and MySQL

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Both PHP and .NET are viable solutions for Web Development. Whether it’s delivering a dynamic Web page generated from a database, sending an email, Building communites with Web 2.0 or interfacing with a payment gateway, both are perfectly capable.However we choose to develop with .NET over PHP because we feel it will be more scalable and more secure and will be a greater benefit to our clients. At the end of the day you can’t compare PHP with .NET. As .NET is an application framework (an environment for building and executing applications) not a programming language; it’s like comparing a truck to a road. PHP can, however, be compared to languages which run under .NET, such as ASP (Quite old now and this is slowly being phased out, some of our older clients are on this) One of the factors we like about .NET is that its compiled, PHP is not compiled, other than when it’s interpreted at runtime, whereas .NET enjoys all the benefits of being compiled. Basically compiled applications run faster are more robust and use memory and hardware better.

Some of the Benefits of using .NET

Any Language. The .NET Framework enables us the developer to use any programming language, and for applications written in any programming languages to integrate deeply with each other, enabling current development skills to go forward without retraining.

Less Code. The .NET Framework uses a highly componentized, plumbing-free design that enables developers to focus on writing business logic. Custom software developers don’t need to write IDL or Registry code and ASP .NET, for example, includes dozens of controls that encapsulate common programmer tasks such as a shopping cart, authentication etc

Mobility. The .NET Framework makes large advances with regards to mobile devices. Integrated support for standards such as HDML and WML mean that applications built on the .NET Framework can target even cellular phones.

Security. The .NET Framework includes an evidence-based security system designed for today’s Internet environments. By collecting evidence about where an application came from, who created it, its digital signature, as well as what the application is trying to do and combining that evidence with a security policy, the .NET Framework’s runtime environment can make very fine-grained decisions about whether to run an application. It can even “negotiate” with the application, for example, denying it the right to write to a protected directory and enabling the application to choose whether it will run without that permission.

There are quite a few more benefits with using .NET but I don’t want to get to into the technical benefits in this blog but will follow up later, when some of our senior developers will give more a list of more of the technical benefits.

Clue Design also prefer to use Microsoft SQL over MYSQL for the primary reason we feel it is more robust and secure than open source MYSQL. SQL Server has been certified as C-2 compliant (U.S. National Security Agency’s criteria for a C2-level secure system), which means the database system has adequate security for government applications. MySQL has no such certification. SQL Server 2005 has implemented more advanced authentication and authorisation features than MYSQL

SQL Server is more failsafe and less prone to data corruption. SQL has a robust checkpoint mechanism whereby the data passes from the keyboard to the hard drive before showing in the monitor. Even if the databases shut down unexpectedly without warning, the data can be recovered. New features in the SQL 2005 provide enhanced mechanisms to manage data protection and rapid restoration. Mirrored backups allow you to create multiple copies of the backup file. These backups have identical content, so you can always mix the files in case one of the sets becomes corrupt.  Copy only backups enable you to make a copy of the database without interrupting the sequence of other backup files. This copy can be used to restore your database, instead of going through the full backup and translation log. You can also save time by using partial backups for all filegroups, except those marked as read-only.  From a database developer’s perspective, choosing between a MySQL and SQL Server is a matter of the scale of the database application. For enterprise-level applications, SQL Server wins hands down. It has advanced set of SQL features, superior replication, clustering, security and management tools.

We feel that MySQL is nowhere near the competitive enterprise field of the more established SQL Server 2005.

This does mean  .NET and Microsoft solutions can sometimes be more expensive in some areas but we feel the advantages outperform and outweigh the cost.

 

Written by cluedesign

1 December 2007 - at 4:13 am

Posted in .NET Framework, .Net Programming, MS SQL, MySQL, PHP, SQL Server 2005, Web Design

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