Hello Lee or Joe, Below is an email I wrote to mandeeps corporation but I posted it in your forum because I needed some input from you guys on how it would work in situations when your production site has modules that required activation to work properly on a given server and than you backup the site to put on a remote development server for a site overhaul until it looks correct to the client and than back it up again and reput the install on the original server that you activated various module licenses on. I guess I need to know if this seems like a viable solution for clients that like to overhaul their site once a year but I can't support this development on my localhost since I don't have a server or proper speed at my house for this as a web farm can do a far better job at this. Would license issues occur if say a client goes to a site via shared ip address opposed to domain name? Thanks for all your help with this issue. ------------------------------------------------- Hello There, I have a question in regards to how the activation process of your modules works. Reason being is because from time to time I have clients that wish to have their site overhauled design wise and so in order to do this efficiently without using my local computer (which is slow) I thought of using a cheap hosting company simply for development purposes. Now I know you have told me before that the only place you could really guarantee that a license would not break would be for http://localhost and not other domains even if they were view via shared ipaddress with a domain put at the end of it as would be the case when turning on site preview in a hosting company. So I guess what my question boils down to is in your modules that you produce if I were to say back up a site and through it on another server for the purpose of overhauling the look and feel of a site and than back that up and put it back on the original server that your license was activated on would I run into issues. In other words could I work with your tooltip module on a server that I choose for development purposes (even if I get the words unlicensed at the bottom of the module) and than set up my tooltips backup the database and file structure, restore it back to the original server and domain that it was activated on and have the licensing message go away since it would be reput on the server that it was originally activated on for production purposes. Thank You for your help in this issue, Bo ------------------------------------------------

I think that the best way to deal with this is to approach your module vendors, describe the situation, and ask them to work with you.

Ok thanks for your help in this regard,

Bo

Let us know how this works out.  It's always nice to know which vendors are cooperative!

Well Joe,

So far I will tell you that most venders I have dealt with are working out pretty well with my issues especially the Markit people who make the Markit modules as they were willing to create a custom module for my situation that did not need activation so that I would not run into any issues in regards to making my DNN portable in regards to developing on one shared host while using another for production purposes.

The only vender that I would say I have run into slight issues with is that of mandeeps who told me they had already dealt with my question in regards to licensing where as the question I had asked them a couple months prior to now dealt merely with what would be best in regards to choosing the correct Live Tooltip version to be used if I were going to need to work under a temporary domain hence activate the license and than switch over to using the production domain that would be used for the public to see.

In this instance weather I get a portal version, or a standard version of their module I could see that issues might occur if I were to transport it to another shared host that was not using localhost for its url. The only solution I could see that would absolutely not be questionable in regards to this would be to get their enterprise version of a module which I believe is allowed to be installed on more than one server but to get the portal, standard, or server versions could still have reprocutions when dealing with a shared hosting company even within the same hosting company if your account is on a different shared server for development than that for production. The only solution then would be a dedicated server which I am not at, at this point.

Having said that I have to give them the benefit of the doubt that they may not of understod what I was getting at and may have read my question very quickly and not throughly so just assumed I was speaking of the same thing I spoke about 2 months prior but I emailed this company again to reiterate the dilema I was findiing myself in and I will let you guys no how it turns out after I emphasized the real issue at hand as it is now.

But really Joe all in all I have really been impressed at how module venders reacted in a possitive way some even telling me that they understood my dilema and how there were others that they knew about that were also in my   so for the most part if a vender does have some kind of activation requirements that is tied to a specific server than they seem to be able to handle things.

One vender told me that their module was tied not to a server but to an installation of DNN and that as long as I didn't use a different installation on the development server but rather simply backed up my current installation and through it on the server their should be no problems.

I did reply to this venders message to ask him if he thought problems might exist if I were to say upgrade a current DNN installation within the shared hosting server I am using for development and than brought that upgraded DNN back to the production server that I had used for the purpose of activating my module but I am not sure what their response was to that question as I have not seen their reply.

In any case I will report back to you guys how these two isolated issues work out so that you guys can be informed how best to go about things if you like me can't use your own computer as a development environment via the localhost url and need the speed and efficiency that a shared hosting company can provide during development so choose that route instead.

Of course if you have a dedicated server than your chances of running into issues are a bit less likely since some standard versions of vender modules that require activation are ok if you have more than one install of their module on the same server but get a bit more nervous if it is discovered that one of their module that you paid for that you used on one shared hosting server is moved to a different shared hosting server so that the module is on two sepeate servers at the same time since how can they know if the reason for this is development and production.

One thing I did mention and might be helpful for anyone who might be going down this route is that I have decided that for development purposes I am not going to bring in a domain from my several domains I have registered in one of the domain registrars rather will be more apt to utilize site preview feature that my hositng company allows for in the control panel so that I can show my clients the developments via some ip address and domain folder name setup in anticipation for a real domain name to be resolved to it but rather than resolving a name like www.mydomain.com to a domain you add I would suggest you do something like turn on the site preview so your clients would go to [ip adress]/mydomain.com.

In this way you are much less likely to run into issues ( I would think at least) and certainly spiders like google and such would not tend to index your site on this development server if you stick with the site preview idea.

One thing to that is a little off what the last paragraph just discussed is that I have not checked with active forums vendor yet (the vendor you guys use for this forum) to see what their licensing policies are but I will say that I have found that I ran into issues when I tried to move their module around. I can't remember if I simply moved the module within the installation from one server to the other or if I tried to uninstall their module from one server (thinking it would deactivate it) and than reinstalling on a different server but whatever the case was I did run into issues of this module breaking when it was put on a server it wasn't activated for and neither did it want to reactive since the activation number must have been registered in their database somewhere so as far as they were concerned it was already in use.

Again I don't remember how I dealt with this module in the instance I ran into it well may have been that I uninstalled it on one installation and than went to the one in development and reinstalled it in fact I think this was the case since the one in production was using sql 2005 and the one in development was using sql 2008 but this also may have been because I moved a DNN instance based on mssql 2005 than had it migrated to mssql 2008 server on the powerdnn hosting. This experience would require a completely different thread but in short I will say never attempt to upgrade your mssql database on one server and think you can after development simply backup your install and restore it on an older database from a different server as it just doesn't work since mssql stuff is not backwards compatible but only forward compatible I learned this the hard way. The powerdnn people told me think of it this way you would never try to revert a windows 7 back to an xp but you could certainly upgrade an xp to a windows 7 and hence the mssql servers work in like manner.

So for anyone who might have been wondering about this issue I can tell you if you go forward in regards to migrating your older database to the newer make sure that both development and production are migrated to this newer database or else you will be pulling your hair out at some point at least if one of your hosting companies have not upgraded their mssql servers to the version you migrated to on powerdnn. (in this example my experience was using ixwebhosting and powerdnn where powerdnn was using mssql 2008 and ixwebhosting was than and I think still is on mssql 2005 and hasn't made the plunge into the next versions of mssql. Of course in order for DNN to work properly at this point the plunge to 2008 is not necessary since they all still work with a 2005 minimum but with mssql 2008 R2 being out since April of 2010 I wouldn't be surprised if within a year or so newer DNN versions started requiring the use of at least mssql 2008. Anyway continuing on from where I left off from a couple paragraphs ago.

I will say that if I were to recommend a shared hosting company for this purpose at this time it would be amhosting which is a sister company of powerdnn (that I know you guys are hosted with).

amhosting (while not having specialists to work on a dnn solution like powerdnn has) does give you a cheaper alternative that I believe will be just as robust in regards to server speed and not overloading their shared server as powerdnn is.

In fact soon they are going to be implementing the same optimization tools including keep alive that powerdnn customers have long enjoyed.

They have a package that is about $10/mo if you prepay for the year and this includes stuff like the possibility of putting 10 domains on the account with 10 mssql accounts like 50 GB of Hard Drive space and 100 GB of bandwidth.

Of course their is give in take in any solution but if anyone wants an affordable solution for simple DNN development and or production sites I would consider http://www.amhosting.com/plesk-windows as a viable solution.

Again they do not have the support like powerdnn has in that you would have to install the DNN yourself and could not rely on them to set up some initial installation for you or even do any indepth troubleshooting in regards to tables, schedules, stored procedures, etc... that may have gone awry as powerdnn can but if you are looking for a economic solution for temporary hosting needs for the purpose of development this might be for you.

Don't worry I do not work for them in fact I have not yet gotten a DNN installation up on their servers though I have recently gotten an account with them as I have one with powerdnn so I still need to prove for myself that in regards to server speed and efficency their servers can handle what I through at it but at least on the surface this seems like it could prove to be a very solid solution for development needs.

I told you guys I would give you a follow up on the mandeeps situation and I have learned that apparently the portal edition of their module would allow you to have such a scenario as to use their module on two different servers one being for development and one for production.

I did want to verify as I did was another vendor that upgrading a DNN install to a later version would not effect the integrity of the licensing mechanism since I will be doing an upgrade to 5.6.1 on the development server and not on the production server.

When I find the answer to this question I will post that here as well so that readers can be better informed as to what they may or may not be able to do when license activation comes into play on two shared hosting environments where one is for development and the other for production.

Thanks,

Bo

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 http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost protocol and a module tied to a single domain does not couph if it sees the http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">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 http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">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 http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost as part of the URL.

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

Just a quick follow up to let you all know I did here back from a couple of the module companies that I was not sure if an upgrade of the DNN install on a development server would effect their licensing and as I mentioned before mandeeps assured me that as long as I didn't try to install their modules (such as live tabs, live content, live tooltip, etc...) on a different instance of DNN I should be ok in regards to simply upgrading the instance it was activated for as long as I am using a version other than a version good for only one domain name.

In regards to the other module company that I had questions about which was DNNspot site map they told me the same story an upgrade should not incur any adverse reactions in regards to licensing since I was upgrading my DNN 5 core to another revision of the DNN 5 core.

They did tell me that if I were upgrading from DNN 4 to DNN 5 in this development environment their well could be adverse consequences in regards to functionality of their module but assured me that if that were to open they could and would do what was needed to rectify or make the module work again once the framework turned into the DNN 5 core but since I was already using DNN 5 and was just going to be going up the latter a little bit more to the latest DNN 5.x release than I should not have any adverse consequences to upgrading my DNN to this latest version within the development server.

So a heads up for anyone who might be thinking of going this route who is thinking about upgrading from DNN 4.x to a DNN 5.x on a shared hosting server that is not the one you activated a module license on you could run into some issues but most likely your module vender would work with you if you explained them the situation as I explained my situation to all my module venders that I was concerned may have licensing restriction that could cause issues with what I wanted to do.

Again thanks Joe and Lee for keeping up this forum it has been really useful and the fact that usually someone replies to most of these posts is also great as it keeps the forum alive even answers some of the basic questions even if it is simply to refer someone to a tutorial it is so much better than just neglecting the question or abandoning it as many forums do including dotnetnuke's own forum and wrox forum under the module development book discussion authored by mitch sellers.

Have a great day and if anyone has any remarks in regards to this thread feel free to post your experiences with your module venders as well as I know it could be a benefit to us all just as Joe stated earlier in this thread so we can all make better decision in regards to modules in the DNN market place.

Take care,

Bo

I really appreciate your reporting back.  It adds to the knowledge that's available here.

your welcome