At Lelala (https://www.lelala.de), the MS stack with the typical layers is used:
- IIS + ASP MVC
- MSSQL (via ORM layer)
- bunch of .NET/C# tools & stuff to support the main system
Since it was asked what happens if the BizSpark period is over, let me state on detail about the model:
In BizSpark, its true that you go vendor lock in as long as you are building strict dependency on their platform, lets say if you use EF for accessing SQL, you may have a problem in the long run.
But:
Even if you've left BizSpark, a MS Server License is to be paid once? (not per year, not every two years etc.)
I do not understand where the myth comes from that one has to pay every year or continuously to use MS licenses?
The math is simple:
A W2K12 Standard server license costs around 850 USD (~ 700 EUR) - once - even if Opensource would is cheaper in term of license costs, a software running 24/7 for a one-time payment of 700 EUR isn't that expensive.
Now, it comes down to scale up or scale out:
- in the one scenario, because of no costs you can scale massivley out, going from one machine to n machines
- but if you ever tried to administrate your machine park lonely(!!) if it counts 5+ machines (while you have to develop/maintain & run the app itself, too!), some may consider to hire a network admin (which is a fixed salary per year which usually outweighs the costs of your MS Server license)
The reason why C# is used, is simple (and was stated above):
- C# and .NET are very convenient and mature environments to write apps in
- C# is considered by me as a beautiful language, i really like it (coming from x years of "C-styled-syntax-languages" could make me somehwat biased ;-)
Instead of the licensing costs of MS products, i see much more important difficulties in the mid- to long-run future if someone built on it:
MS maybe not survive the upcoming decade because of huge market shifts; then, in 10 years, it may be a problem if you will not get any support because the company maybe no more existing.
God thanks, the next version of ASP MVC has a VM for *nix-derivatives, so you could solve this issue by running your app on a Linux-box.
(And if you then have built your app additionally on a top of an ORM, you won't have any issues)
Jeff Atwood made a GREAT comparison on up-vs-out-scaling some years ago:
http://blog.codinghorror.com/scaling-up-vs-scaling-out-hidde...