Question

I’m developing an asp .net web application for somebody.

This application is going to offer a certain amount of document management capabilities (generating pdf’s, upload/download docs etc.). I’m using telerik controls for uploading etc. so that’s fine so far, but, assuming I’m using a web host who’s file system I have no access to (would that not be most web hosting services?), the client can never find these files on their hard drive can they? Unless I implement some sort of automated file transfer protocol or an e-mail service? How do typical web-based applications deal with this?

I’d typically favour a windows forms approach to this sort of solution usually and manage the file system through code so that all documents of a certain type, for example, can be found in one particular directory but it’s explicitly requested that it is web-based for obvious access reasons.

Does the user need to host this themselves if they want this sort of unrestricted access?

Answer 1

A web host will typically have capabilities to store files on their servers. You’ll have to keep in mind that these documents will count against the space and bandwidth restrictions on the host. You will have to ensure that your application has permissions to write files to the server, and this can be coordinated with the host.

Alternatively, you could store file paths to a network share on the client’s system, so that when any file is opened via the web application, it will open the file as stored on the client’s servers.