Is PHP-IIS-MSsql a safe solution ?

[modist]

Hi All,

I have a few questions regarding subj and would be thrilled if You could help me. My situation is :
I'm the head of a local/independent development team in a big company and we have developed 5 sites based on LINUX/Apache/PHP/MySQL/perl. These sites are for security reasons hosted outside our global network, and therefore we were able to select different platform than the one used inside the organisation. (which is NT4/IIS/MSsql/Oracle/Crystal report/ASP).

Now we face the challenge of establishing a intranet-solution based on the mentioned microsoft-solution. As a 'responsible' I would prefer to do it 'the microsoft way', but as a experienced php-developer I would prefer to keep using PHP.

The big questions are:
- Is PHP considered a production-ready solution on a NT4/IIS.
- What will we miss if we choose PHP ?
- In a microsoftworld, do we isolate ourselves when choosing PHP/IIS instead of ASP-VBscript/IIS ?
- What are the experience regarding accessing MSsql/Oracle from a PHP/IIS-solution ?

I don't know if You have any comments/solutions, but perhaps You have some links that could help us to decide.

The choice of NT4/IIS is fixed !

I'm an experienced developer and are well aware of the advantages of both PHP & ASP/VBscript, so the questions ONLY concerns the stability of the combinations.

Kind regards

[mithril]

• Is PHP considered a production-ready solution on a NT4/IIS.

Depends on the setup. The PHP ISAPI filter can be a bit buggy at times, although on the whole it's pretty stable. For an intranet site, the usage load is probably going to be low enough that you can get away with PHP as CGI (although it will be slower than the embeded ASP ISAPI Filter)

• In a microsoftworld, do we isolate ourselves when choosing PHP/IIS instead of ASP-VBscript/IIS?

Not sure if I'd say "isolate" but integration with other applications probably won't be as seamless as if you remained MS-only. However, the additional code you may need to write will probably only cancel-out the savings from not having to write reems of ASP code to accomplish the relatively simple tasks🙂

• What are the experience regarding accessing MSsql/Oracle from a PHP/IIS-solution ?

Check out the article on PHPBuilder entitled "Cross-platform and Portable Development With PHP". It's pretty interesting and it sounds pretty simliar to the situation you descibe.

Just my $0.02, so take them with a grain of salt🙂 HTH.

Cheers,

Geoff A. Virgo

[peterprins]

You can do everything Microsoft if you want but I'd use Perlscript as the scripting language for your ASP pages instead of VBScript or Jscript.

VBScript is limited and is the default scripting language for ASP pages.

Jscript has more features but for some godforsaken reason people hardly use it, probably because they don't even know that it's already there and probably because the majority of ASP sites out there are all cut and paste and the free code available is in VBScript.

Perlscript is the best choice as it is an ActiveX Scripting Engine for Perl and can be used as the scripting language in your ASP pages.

http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Downloads/ActivePerl/More

The better choice would be PHPScript but there isn't an ActiveX Scripting Engine for PHP yet (maybe someone will make one soon)

PHP is stable on the win32 platform but don't use the ISAPI module

You have to ask yourself the question...

Do I need programming power or convenience? If you need programming power then VBScript is not it.

[Anon]

Well I've run PHP IIS and MYSQL, and it works GREAT!!! BUT with the CODE RED VIRRI going arround I just started using APAHCE !!!

[Anon]

It's much safer to NOT use IIS or have you not been keeping up to date with all it's security flaws?

[modist]

I couldn't agree more, but as stated in my question, we HAVE to use IIS/MSsql!

[modist]

I couldn't agree more, but as stated in my question, we HAVE to use IIS/MSsql!

[Anon]

Well It works I've used it!!!

[ggusmaroli]

Hi,
I've implemented a big solution running in NT/IIS/PHP4/MSSQL/MySQL.
The system is stable and in production now (www.concaritas.org). I had to use an external aplication developed in ASP to make the transactions and i could make work together PHP and ASP.
You are not going to loose PHP functionality, but you have to be creative to find the dll's necessaries to make run special features like GD, but you can do it.

Best regards
Gabriel

Morten wrote:

Hi All,

I have a few questions regarding subj and would be thrilled if You could help me. My situation is :
I'm the head of a local/independent development team in a big company and we have developed 5 sites based on LINUX/Apache/PHP/MySQL/perl. These sites are for security reasons hosted outside our global network, and therefore we were able to select different platform than the one used inside the organisation. (which is NT4/IIS/MSsql/Oracle/Crystal report/ASP).

Now we face the challenge of establishing a intranet-solution based on the mentioned microsoft-solution. As a 'responsible' I would prefer to do it 'the microsoft way', but as a experienced php-developer I would prefer to keep using PHP.

The big questions are:
- Is PHP considered a production-ready solution on a NT4/IIS.
- What will we miss if we choose PHP ?
- In a microsoftworld, do we isolate ourselves when choosing PHP/IIS instead of ASP-VBscript/IIS ?
- What are the experience regarding accessing MSsql/....