Hello Joe and Lee,
I think this should be my last follow up in my research in regards to how licensing works with various venders.
It seems like the school of thought is if a license is menat for a per DNN instance or a portal than to simply backup your database and file structure and move it onto a server using a different domain/ip address should not cause any headaches. At worst some may cause some warning message while it is not in production but that message should disappear as long as you transfer the whole DNN installation back to its home base where it was activated.
In these situations I also asked a few of the venders how the license would behave in the event I needed to upgrade my DNN instance on my server I was using strictly for development purposes and at least Active Forums vender (which I think is a good test since they do seem to have pretty stringent licensing policies) the customer service rep seemed to think after talking to one of the techs that upgrading a DNN instance on a development type basis should not effect the integrity of the license. It would only be effected if for example you tried to perhaps uninstall and reinstall just the active forum module to a instance of DNN on the shared hosting server but in reality I am not sure if even that would do it but it well could.
All in all the biggest bugaboo in regards to licensing issues is those venders that tie their license to a domain as does CDAA Site Map module.
I got feedback from them who told me that what I wanted to do would not work with the license I had since it was 1 domain for $36. They told me I would have to go with at least 5 domain package if I wanted activation on more than one domain.
Upon hearing back from them I looked at snowcovered and discovered on snowcovered the next licensing they offered was upt o 10 domains for $75 about a $40 increase in the module.
I did contact the module developer to tell them that snowcovered seemed to have the next level as 10 domains and not 5 but in either case the bottom line is that for anyone who plans on needing to do what I am attempting to do I would recommend doing your homework in regards to modules before you purchase them to make sure that you are not getting a module that is tied to a single domain.
a single portal (if you want it for only one website) may be ok or a singel DNN instance of multiple portals seems to be ok for doing this kind of thing but BUYER BE WARE of going for the cheapest licensing package you can find assuming that the cheapest is at least meant for one website because when needing to have two shared hosting servers (one for development and one for production) one website is not sufficient because if the module is tied to be used on only one domain opposed to one DNN instance than moving your one DNN instance to another domain would obviously cause adverse reactions to the modules in your instace that were tied to the domain.
Perhaps it would be useful if you are thinking of getting a module that is tied to a domain to contact the vender BEFORE purchasing this license to find out the consequences of transferring a DNN instance or copy a DNN instances temporarily to a remote shared hosting server for development purposes.
For example when you do this will the following things happen:
1. Will the module simply stop working
2. Will the module continue to allow you to develop in it even if a warning message is invoked
3. If the only side effect is a unlicensed warning message will that warning go away when you restore your DNN instance on the production server that it was originally activated on.
In closing I would say that for me at least the only acceptable answer I could live with in regards to justifying the purchase of a module license meant strictly for 1 domain name is that the only side effect of moving an instance of DNN to a different domain for development purposes that isn't a localhost type URL would be if the only thing that happened within the module in development was a unlicensed warning.
In other words I could still develop within the module in the development server but would just have to deal with the warning that my module was not currently licensed and would have to explain that to my clients as long as when the DNN instance was moved back to the server I was using for production that this unlicensed message went away so that the public would not think we were using unlicensed software.
Other than this one exception if a module vender cannot guarantee those two things that a module tied strictly to one domain when moved would only have a side effect of giving an unlicensed message while running on the other shared hosting server for development
Or if a module vender cannot guarantee that once the module is moved back to its home server where it was initially activated on the unlicensed warning would be able to automatically disappear my advice would be as follows:
STEER CLEAR FROM IT unless you do have your own development server that you can access via the
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http://localhost protocol and a module tied to a single domain does not couph if it sees the
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http://localhost in the URL but other than those 3 things or if you don't want to go through the hastle of verifying with the module vender that their module tied to a domain could be acceptable to your situation than I would just simply look for a module that either is tied to a portal, instance or perhaps server or if a module vender does not give you these options but only gives you the option of being tied to a domian (as does CDAA Site Map) than if you really like their module and have to have it I would opt to go for a licensing arrangement that includes at least at minimum 2 domians so you can use the one domain for development and the other for production.
As far as I can see CDAA as it concerns snowcovered only gives you a minimum of 10 domains at its next licensing level but here is a siutation you may want to communicate with your vender and see if that can't make some custom arrangement with their licensing for your specific situation so that you don't have to pay the high price for 10 domains but can perhaps get one for 2, 3, 5 or whatever the vender would be willing to compromise with so instead of paying $36 for the one domain or $75 for teh 10 maybe you can negotiate for 2, 3, or 5 domains for some cost inbetween the $36 bracket and the $75 bracket since you want a module that is tied to greater than 1 domain but have no need for one tied to such an absorbitant amount as 10 unless you so happen to have enough clients who wants this module where it would make it worth your while to do so.
Personally I would say that it may only be worth your while to go with this 10 domain option if you have at least 3 or 4 clients that want this module but 1 or 2 clients that wnat it I personally could not justify purchasing the license agreement for 10 when I knew I wouldn't be using half of them since 2 clients would amount to a need for 4 domains a production and development domain for each client.
Anyway I know this has been a lengthy thread mostly with my posts and personal research on this matter but I hope this thread will be a benefit to others who are in the valley of decision as how they should approach this special case scenario where they are not at the level of having their own dedicated server or personally tuned computer that could support a development environment that had
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http://localhost attached to it if their client wanted to look at and do work on the site while under development and they didn't know how to allow them to remotely access a development server that was using the
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In these special cases where you are on a budget and so need to utilize a shared hosting solution for your development needs and a shared hosting solution for your production needs than I would say for you this information may be just what you have been wanting.
Lastly I would say that at this point in time I would recommend powerdnn for production and amhosting for development unless you are we behind the ears with DNN than it may be useful just to stick with powerdnn since they do a lot of the grunt work for you in regards to making sure your DNN works properly on their servers using optimization tools and the like.
By the way amhosting will not be acquiring powerdnn's optimization toolset any time soon as they first hoped and will let me know when they cross that bridge. I hope sooner than later but at anyrate amhosting could certainly be a viable solution for production or development for the more intermediate dotnetnukers out there who don't mind gettings their hands a bit dirty doing periodic maintenace work like truncating the schedulehistory table, site log and event logs, and periodically cleaning out their recycle bin, etc. etc... as amhosting is only about $5/month if paying the year in advance for 5x the hard drive space and 5x the mssql databases that powerdnn offers for $20/mo if paying the year in advance.
Howbeit having said that powerdnn has unlimited band width and amhosting has only 50 GB per month plus powerdnn's support for Dotnetnuke is top notch where as amhosting is really not a specialty host in regards to DNN knowledge. They told me to think of them as the Cosco's of dotnetnuke in that they can certainly handle DNN well but focus on a majority of different things dealing with windows and linux hosting where as powerdnn may be more like you staples or best buy stores that have a better handle and specialty on what they do best which is DNN so if you are looking for a host that can provide you a smooth DNN experience where you don't have to get your hands to dirty with the setup and installation of DNN but focus rather on the installing of third party modules and skinning, etc... than go with powerdnn for the extra $15/mo
If you are ok with getting your hands a bit dirty and trying to work with amhosting so that you can get your portals setup properly (perhaps manually putting in a records to point to the ip address you installed DNN on, etc...) than go with amhosting for only $5/mo.
Maybe I should also state that if you think you are going to have really heavy traffic on your site that somehow would exceed the 50 GB or 250GB per month than again go with power DNN.
Note amhosting shared hosting plans go anywhere from $4.99/mo up to $14.99 /mo if prepayed for a year and the $14.99 a month gives you 250 GB of hard disk space 250 GB of bandwidth 20 domains and 15 mssql accounts (I know it would be nice if they would match the number of their domains with the number of their mssql acccounts so you could install up to 20 DNN instances in this plan but hay lets give them a break they do not claim to be the ones that no how to do DNN right but I do believe they can provide a smooth experience for DNN users if those users work with them to configure it.).
So bottom line is even the highest shared hosting plan amhosting provides is still about $5 cheaper per month than is the cheapest plan of powerdnn if you prepay for either of these plans and amhosting claims that powerdnn is their sister company and they even say themsleves if you want a DNN experience you should go with powerdnn so they actually recommend powerdnn to people who want to set up a DNN environment but I think they do that assuming that those who are inquiring about DNN are those that have not gotten their hands dirty with the installation process of it as of yet so need some hand holding in order to get them up and running quickly which is what powerdnn provides.
So the biggest thing I think you are paying $15/mo extra for is for the kind of support powr dnn can provide to folks that use DNN but if you are willing to brave it out with amhosting and do a little extra initial grunt work to get you instance up and running than it seems to me that perhaps the pay off of up to $15 less a month or at the least $5 of per month for much more hard disk resources and promises of the same kind of speed powerdnn provides with the use of the same control panel (parrellel plesk) that DNN customers enjoy I would say why not give amhosting a try and check out for yourself they give you a 30 day money back guarantee too if you are not satisfied with there service.
I first learned about this amhosting from a friend who recommended I check out the following site:
http://webmasterformat.com/blog/bes...b-hosting. While amhosting says they do not know where this site came from and why it categorizes them as one of the top dnn hosting sites out there they do acknowledge that since this site first started appearing on the web about 2 weeks ago they have been getting numerous calls in regards to people wanting to create a DNN site on a budget so certainly they are well aware of this DNN influx that people seem to be having and currently they only have like 25 people on their newest server they are putting folk on but this could drastically change of course as more and more people discover this company.
I checked out the other two companies listed on this site but wasn't really satisfied sas the 3essentials company gave me a answering machine during normal business hours when I called them in the afternoon some time on a non holiday and non weekend day so that I could make sure it was at least 10:00 AM in PST time (i.e. California, Washington state, etc...) as I live in EST or Eastern Standard Time and I got this answering machine that invited me to leave a message when I pressed 1 to talk with their sales department not even their support department so I am a bit leary about how good their support really is if they don't have great support in their sales department.
On the last hosting one that was listed on this website ( webhostforasp.net) while they may well be good, with good support that do not as of yet seem to support mssql 2008 R2 and if this is not important to you you may want to check them out but it was important to me since I was looking for an economic shared hosting environment that I could recommend my clients utilize when needing an overhaul of their website which was migrated to mssql 2008 R2 so you need to decide if the availability the latest sql server is important in your specific case.
So for me as far as I'm concerned right now it seems tha powerdnn and amhosting are both good and both target a certain class of people one with more DNN experience under their belt and one class that is just web behind the ears and starting to get into it so if I were you I would look at these two unless like I said you find you do not need the latest sql server than you may want to take a furhter look into that webhostforasp.net company but I have not really looked into this one beyond the fact I know as of now it can't support the mssql 2008 R2 or might as well be mssql 2010.
Anyway take care and I hope this thread will give valuable information that can help you as you set up DNN for yourself or other clients.
Take care,
Bo