Business: DiscountASP.NET, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, provides feature-rich, affordable, advanced Microsoft ASP.NET hosting and SQL Database Hosting, and support for Classic ASP Hosting as well to more than 25,000 developer customers in 130 countries.
Challenge: To support the technical needs of a large active developer community, DiscountASP.NET must constantly innovate and offer the latest technology to its customers.
Solution: Now in beta on IIS7, DiscountASP.NET is offering their customers a free IIS7 beta test account, which provides an environment for experimenting with the new Web server and its many features.
Results: More than 2,000 customers have signed up for the IIS7 beta test accounts. Key advantages include end-user customization, enhanced extensibility, ability to extend the Web server in many more ways, and unified APIs
Winner of "Product of the Year" and Best Hosting Service Awards from asp.netPRO Magazine's Readers' Choice poll for 2005 and 2006, DiscountASP.NET hosts over 25,000 customers in more than 130 countries.
DiscountASP.NET has a laser-sharp, exclusive focus on ASP.NET Web hosting and SQL Server Database [Microsoft SQL Server™] as the basis for their hosting service for Developers, SMB and Enterprise. According to Vice President of Marketing Takeshi Eto, "Our sole focus on Windows 2003 gave us a leg up." Unlike its competitors who try to be all things to all people, diverting resources to Unix, Linux, Cold Fusion, Java, and other technologies, DiscountASP.NET directs 100 percent of its resources to shared Microsoft Windows Hosting. The company built its own ASP.NET-driven "instant activation" hosting automation system that it claims leapfrogs the competition. Explains Eto, "Customers don’t need to wait an hour or a day to begin uploading their Web applications. Further, we continuously improve our ASP.NET Hosting and SQL Hosting offerings by introducing new .NET technologies, components, management tools and business partners." This business strategy has propelled DiscountASP.NET to become one of the first Windows 2003 hosting providers in the marketplace, widely known for a high degree of customer service along with leading Microsoft technologies.
A Microsoft Gold Certified Partner since 2006, DiscountASP.NET prides itself on being on the cutting edge of Microsoft technologies. One such example is its early commitment to Internet Information Services 7.0 (IIS7) — Microsoft’s latest version of its Web server. More than 2,000 customers have already signed up for a free IIS7 beta test account — giving them a chance to experiment with the upcoming new technology. By offering this service, DiscountASP.NET is simply doing what it has always done: providing its customers with the latest and greatest technology available. In addition to being one of the first to offer IIS7, DiscountASP.NET was one of the first to market with ASP.NET AJAX hosting, .NET Framework 3.0 Hosting, ASP.NET 2.0 Hosting, SQL 2005 Hosting, On-Demand Automated Attach MDF Tool , and much more.
Says Eto, "We do not believe in being a stagnant hoster or following in the footsteps of other hosts. By innovation and leadership, we have become the choice for affordable feature rich, enterprise ASP.NET hosting."
The company takes great pride in its ability to quickly adapt to new technology — hosting in its own state-of-the art datacenter on the latest Dell PowerEdge Servers with no legacy systems. Explains Eto, "We do not offer, manage, or support outdated NT hosting systems, and we don’t outsource any of our support either."
As an early adopter of new technology, DiscountASP.NET makes sure that customers can try out new functionality before adopting it in production. DiscountASP.NET began offering IIS7 in a test environment because they recognized that users might be hesitant to install and test it on their home or business computers. By providing a test account that sits on a separate server, customers can safely try out IIS7’s new features and capabilities.
Results: More Customization, and Extensibility
According to DiscountASP.NET, both the company and their customers using the free beta version of IIS7 have seen three key advantages so far: greater level of end-user customization; ability to extend the Web server in many more ways; and unified APIs.
The IIS7 core Web server features are built using a new set of public Web server APIs that all developers can use to extend, replace or add functionality to the Web server. These APIs are available as both native Win32® APIs as well as managed .NET Framework APIs. Developers can also take advantage of IIS7’s extensibility of event logging, configuration, and administration tool feature-sets, which is just what DiscountASP.NET has done.
Explains Eto: "Using the new APIs, we’ve streamlined our provisioning system, reducing the code base by about 50 percent. Another key advantage we’ve seen is the ability to do customization with IIS7, versus the older versions. IIS7 is factored into more than 40 feature modules that can be independently installed on the box. It provides us with more control over the server environment, which, in turn, allows us to provide our customers with even more control over their individual Website account configuration. We are extremely happy with what we have seen so far."
DiscountASP.NET is committed to provide the best hosting experience to customers using the latest Microsoft technologies. Today DiscountASP.NET is one of the few ASP.NET Hosting providers to offer free IIS7 hosting. Once IIS7 officially ships with Windows Server 2008, DiscountASP.NET plans to offer IIS7 hosting as quickly as possible. This dedication should come as no surprise to its customers. The company’s Webhosting service won "Product of the Year" and Best Hosting Service Awards from asp.netPRO Magazine's Readers' Choice poll for 2005 and 2006. DiscountASP.NET’s adoption of the latest Microsoft Web technologies fits right in with that commitment to its customers.