ASP.NET

ASP is a programming language used with HTML to make websites. Full form of ASP is Active Server Pages. ASP was developed by Microsoft and because of that, any website using the ASP language or ASO pages must be hosted on a server running Microsoft Windows. This brings up another very important piece of information regarding web design/development. Basic HTML pages can be put on any computer and viewed but pages using the different languages require specific server requirements in order to be viewed correctly.  PHP pages are commonly hosted on server running UNIX or LINUX. ASP pages must be hosted on a server running Microsoft Windows. The keyword here is “server”. Window 95, 98, ME and XP home are not servers so ASP pages cannot be hosted on computers using these operating systems. Generally most servers running Windows today are using Windows NT, Windows Server 2000, Windows Advanced Server 2000 or Windows Server 2003.

ASP pages can also be hosted on computers using Windows 2000 Professional or Widows XP Professional. All of these versions of Windows have the capability of running IIS or Internet Information Services, which is Microsoft’s proprietary web server. Some web hosts do offer ASP capabilities on a UNIX or LINUX server through something called ChiliSoft ASP but this is only a Windows IIS emulator of sorts and currently has some issues handling certain ASP scripts that could limit your website. It is strongly urged that you research current issues or limitations of ChiliSoft or any other services that allows ASP pages to be hosted on servers not running Microsoft Windows before developing or deploying in these environments. Everyday advancements are made and possibly the technology to host different languages on different server will be perfected.

Always keep these different server requirements in mind when shopping for a web host. There are several groups out there that provides website hosting a variety of costs. Do not pay attention only to the price but what you get for that price. With the growing demand for ASP and ASP.Net websites more and more hosts are offering Windows based server at lower rates than before. If you decide to specialize in PHP then you will just about always choose a UNIX or LINUX server and if you are an ASP or ASP.Net developer then you will almost always select a Windows server.