There are now a lot of Cloud Offerings. Amazon, Azure and I also really like Jelastic!
Jelastic is a great hosting environment for Java and PHP, but can it be used for ColdFusion. Sure!!
They have a very nice guide: http://blog.jelastic.com/2012/02/07/the-easiest-way-to-deploy-coldfusion-to-the-cloud/
Can you do the same with Azure or Amazon. Sure.
For example see this guide: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/java/tutorials/tomcat-on-a-virtual-machine/
Once you have a vm with java you just deploy the coldfusion EAR and that's all :)
The web platform provides an excellent mechanism simplify your app distribution and deployment issues.
There is no longer a need for CD-ROMs, or to send a computer technician to install the app on each client computer. Other related problems such as verifying that the client has the right application version, application dependencies and security can be simplified.
When you modernize your legacy app with Mobilize.Net\Artinsoft you could take advantage of several options. In terms of application distribution\deployment thru web technologies or running your application inside a web browser we have several post describing different way of doing this.
Using ClickOnce deployment over the web to simplify Windows Form Application deployment
Embedding Windows Forms Applications directly in a WebBrowser
Embedding Windows Forms Applications in a WebBrowser using XBAP
Silverlight as a mechanism for simplification of application deployment
WPF applications distribution on the browser using XBAP
Use HTML5 deploy your applications everywhere
Some VB6 and Windows Forms applications are still great but probably you need them to reach a bigger audience.
There are now amazing devices with internet access, but all of then different in hardware and software combinations.
HTML and in particular HTML5 five technologies provide an unifying set of technologies that are supported by the main industry vendors. HTML5 browsers are available on tables, cell phones, linux/mac/windows PCs.
In this post I will add references to other pages which do a great work on explaining how to use this approach to host a Windows Forms App inside a WebBrowser.
The technique described here is a deployment solution to ease distribution of applications modernized from legacy technologies to Windows Forms, maybe using the Artinsoft\Mobilize.NET tools ;)
NOTE: "This workaround of .NET Winforms to WPF and then hosting it in a browser isn't truly moving a Windows based application to a web based application. e.g. database calls will be made from inside the browser on the users PC to the database, not via the IIS server. Therefore this functionality is most useful if you have connected your Winforms UI to you back-end code using web services, then you can have a somewhat web based application."
Adam Berent gives step by step instrutions:
Figure 1: Example of Windows Forms applications running inside FireFox browser using an XBAP wrapper.
Some details that are missing in this article are related to how to publish the application on IIS, and these can described as:
1. Create a test Certificate within Visual Studio and sign it against the project.
The following links provides information on how to sing the xbap with your own certificate.
2. Within VS publish the application.
4. Install the certificate on the Client PCs
The certificate must be added in the trusted publisher and in the trusted root authority. If this is not done correctly you get the error 'Trust not granted'
Artinsoft\Mobilize.Net helps legacy application to be modernized using the Windows Forms technology. Doing this upgrade revitalizes your application code and allows you to take advantage of the new platforms features like ClickOnce deployment.
What is ClickOnce deployment?
"ClickOnce is a deployment technology that enables you to create self-updating Windows-based applications that can be installed and run with minimal user interaction. Visual Studio provides full support for publishing and updating applications deployed with ClickOnce technology if you have developed your projects with Visual Basic and Visual C#.
ClickOnce deployment overcomes three major issues in deployment:
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Difficulties in updating applications. With Microsoft Windows Installer deployment, whenever an application is updated, the user can install an update, an msp file, and apply it to the installed product; with ClickOnce deployment, you can provide updates automatically. Only those parts of the application that have changed are downloaded, and then the full, updated application is reinstalled from a new side-by-side folder.
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Impact to the user's computer. With Windows Installer deployment, applications often rely on shared components, with the potential for versioning conflicts; with ClickOnce deployment, each application is self-contained and cannot interfere with other applications.
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Security permissions. Windows Installer deployment requires administrative permissions and allows only limited user installation; ClickOnce deployment enables non-administrative users to install and grants only those Code Access Security permissions necessary for the application.
In the past, these issues sometimes caused developers to decide to create Web applications instead of Windows-based applications, sacrificing a rich user interface for ease of installation. By using applications deployed using ClickOnce, you can have the best of both technologies."
Click Once Deployment Strategies
There are 3 deployment strategies:
- Install from Web or a Network Share
- Install from a CD
- Start from the Web or Network share
For a quick overview of how to use the ClickOnce deployment take a look at Shahar Gvirtz's post http://weblogs.asp.net/shahar/archive/2008/01/29/how-to-use-clickonce-to-deploy-your-applications.aspx