Asp net remote Development Environment

This solution provides installation and configuration guidance for university departments wanting to enable remote ASP.NET development capabilities using Microsoft® Visual Studio .NET® and Internet Information Services (IIS) in a multi-developer environment.

The default Visual Studio .NET integrated development environment enables developers to rapidly create Web-based applications using ASP.NET and IIS. However, this environment generally assumes that the developer is working in an isolated environment with IIS running locally on the development computer.

In a multiple developer environment this may not be the case and developers may be working on a number of development computers connected to a central IIS Web server. In a university environment, multiple developers may be working on a pool of development computers all connected to a central IIS Web server. Developers may also require access to Microsoft SQL Server™ in order to develop database applications. Again, this is likely to be a central SQL Server accessed from remote development computers.

In this scenario, certain requirements must be met to enable a workable solution:

● Each developer requires an isolated workspace to develop and debug their applications.

● Each developer requires their files to be stored centrally to enable access from any development computer.

● Each developer requires debugging capabilities for their ASP.NET projects.

● Each developer may require access to a SQL Server.

● Development computers cannot run local instances of IIS.

● Development computers cannot run local instances of SQL Server.

● Developers cannot have administrative access to the development computers.

The solution needs to enable a single IIS Web server to provide a central location where users can develop, host, and store their ASP.NET application. It also needs to provide access to a SQL Server for users to develop database applications.

System Requirements

The technical solution consists of the following computers and software:

● A domain controller – running Microsoft Windows® 2003 Server

● A Web server – running Windows 2003 Server, IIS, and optionally SQL Server (if required, SQL Server can run on a separate computer)

● Multiple development computers – running Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP Professional and Visual Studio .NET.

Solution

The ASP.NET Remote Development Environment is a framework for an environment that solves the problems inherent in a multi-developer remote ASP.NET debugging environment.

Figure 1

Users can create and configure their own workspaces using the sample configuration application. This application does the following:

● Creates and secures the user's home directory.

● Creates and configures an application pool to run under the user's domain user account.

● Creates and configures a virtual directory to run using the user's application pool,

● Secures and configures Front Page Server Extensions for the virtual directory.

● Runs a stored procedure to creates a database on the SQL Server.

The solution configuration requires at least two servers running Windows 2003 Server Edition: one being the domain controller, and the other the IIS Web server and SQL Server. (If required, you can install IIS and SQL Server on separate computers.) You cannot combine the domain controller and the IIS computer because of the requirement for local users and groups on the IIS Web server. You can use multiple development computers running Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP Professional to connect to the IIS Web server and SQL Server. All the computers within the solution must be members of the same domain.

The solution consists of documentation of the architecture and instructions for the installation and configuration of software and user accounts. It also includes a sample configuration application that demonstrates how to programmatically create a development environment for a user.

Documentation

The solution documentation consists of the following:

● ASP.NET Remote Development Environment Setup Guide, which contains detailed installation and configuration procedures to create the environment.

● ASP.NET Remote Development Environment Architecture Guide, which contains an overview of the architecture and design of the solution.

The solution includes a sample Web application that you can use as a basis for a configuration Web site. This enables users to automatically create the necessary objects on the IIS Web server for remote debugging and on the SQL Server for database access. The application consists of an ASP.NET Web site with pages for the setup and status information of a user's environment. You can customise this Web site for your own particular needs.

There are three steps that you must take to enable the ASP.NET Remote Development Environment (RDE) solution for your users: you must install the software and configure the computers, install the sample configuration application, and use the application to create and configure developer workspaces.

Before using the solution, you must install and configure the required software on the IIS Web server and development computers. Follow the procedures in the ASP.NET Remote Development Environment Setup Guide to configure each computer in the environment.

After configuring the computers, you can install the sample Web application that demonstrates the automation of the user tasks. Follow the procedures in the Sample Configuration Application Setup Guide section of the ASP.NET Remote Development Environment Setup Guide to configure each computer in the environment.

Users can access the configuration application from development computers and use it to create and configure their own workspace for each project that they develop.

Further Development and Support

If you have developed the RDE guide to suit your infrastructure requirements and wish to help contribute back to the academic community then we would be happy to accept your documented changes to rdehelp@microsoft.com so that these can be distributed to other similar academic institutions.