Question

I would like a use a tool with similar features to drop.io.

Does anyone know a codeplex project that I would implement.
I want something that will allow our clients to upload files such as logs etc for our debugging. In addition, I would like something that is easy for our clients to download files such as our releases. I would like to brand it to our colour scheme.

I know we could write it ourselves, but I can’t believe this has not already been done.

Any thoughts?

Answer 1

Do you want to replicate the drop.io infrastructure, or just access to drop.io? You can obviously use the REST API that drop.io provides and build on top of that. However, it sounds as if you want the infrastructure side.

I wouldn’t be so surprised that drop.io hasn’t been replicated in ASP.Net. Infrastructure providing for file uploads/downloads is somewhat well-known but can be complex. Scaling for growth, bandwidth/throughput, uptime/availability, etc. can be serious challenges to address. Additionally, ASP.Net is not the most robust environment (Windows/IIS) for file uploads due to native in-process vs. out-of-process behaviors. There are better environments suited for handling those processes.

Based on the short description you’ve provided, my instinct is that your best bet for implementation would be:

1. Rely on an existing API such as Drop.IO or Box.Net to build your service against. Don’t underestimate the infrastructure needs here, it’s more than just upload and download functionality in web pages.
2. If you must roll-your-own, back it up against Amazon web services or even look in Windows Azure. At least make use of their hardware environments; their bandwidth, throughput, and uptime are quite reliable.

Hope this helps.