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I have a .NET web server application I'm building that I plan to host at a .NET cloud hosting platform, like AppHarbor with SQL server. It will be used by multiple small groups of people to record and processes votes at an election (the current system is called TallyJ).

I also need my users to be able to set up a self-contained edition on a single PC, or as a server on a PC with an ad hoc LAN that is not connected to the internet when it is being used.

My current plan would be to use IIS Express and SQL CE for a local setup. With that, the local and hosted versions of code and SQL would be the same.

Does this sound viable, or am I missing something?

Do you have any suggestions for a better set of tools (but limited to C# and a relational database on the server/cloud)?

Arseni Mourzenko
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Glen Little
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2 Answers2

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It certainly sounds viable.

It has the great advantage of allowing you to keep with one version of the application which will always be easier to develop and maintain.

However, is it going to present any difficulties to the user?

One issue might be that you are limiting the users of your off line application to Windows users. Is this acceptable? If not then you'll have to find a different platform for the application. This is just one example that sprang to mind immediately. There will be others. You will need to draw up a list and see if any are show-stoppers for you.

ChrisF
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If you really must give 2 versions of your application, an online and other offline mode, I would strongly suggest to drop the web application entirely unless you must have a web version.

A simple windows application (maybe Silverlight so you can aim not only for Mac but for browser and out-of-the-browser as well), that will consume a local database and sync into the master when having a connection.

If you want to have an app in the browser, you can simply use the same Silverlight application in Hosted mode and on each user, in "out-of-the-browser" mode.

There is plenty of solutions to sync offline databases from Microsoft or others, plenty of questions/answers on StackOverflow about this:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1656652/syncing-sql-server-2008-databases-over-http-using-wcf-sync-framework

Community
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balexandre
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