Questions from a Newbie

I am seeking some advice and information on Modx - we are in the position where our external advertising agency has designed a new corporate web site for us based on Modx - and our senior management have decided to go live with it in three months. Now, at this relatively late stage, I have been pulled into the project, as the IT manager, to make it happen (don’t ask about the rationale behind that).

The only problem is we are a Microsoft shop - Windows Server 2003, IIS 6, .Net development environment, MS SQL Server 2005 for our databases - everything that I believe Modx is not.

While at a pinch we could install a linux server, get Apache and MySql running, it will add extra support headaches for me.

My questions:

Can Modx us a MS SQL Server back end rather than My SQL?

Can it run using some version of PHP installed on IIS 6?

Am I crazy to even think of trying to get Modx running in an environment different from that recommended on this site?

Any advice would be greatly welcomed,

Thanks

Ken Ray

I’m sure it’s been done before. A lot of CMS’ recommend using the LAMP/WAMP/MAMP Stack, but they also work on IIS... and I am fairly confident that modx is no different.

Here’s a thread that might help you out:
http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,14486.0.html

And a whole board dedicated to the subject:
http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/board,220.0.html

Reading through some of the posts, it doesn’t sound too promising - but its worth a shot to not have to install a new server, I guess. Good luck!

Quote from: Maclir at Oct 16, 2008, 10:21 AM

I am seeking some advice and information on Modx - we are in the position where our external advertising agency has designed a new corporate web site for us based on Modx - and our senior management have decided to go live with it in three months. Now, at this relatively late stage, I have been pulled into the project, as the IT manager, to make it happen (don’t ask about the rationale behind that).

The only problem is we are a Microsoft shop - Windows Server 2003, IIS 6, .Net development environment, MS SQL Server 2005 for our databases - everything that I believe Modx is not.

While at a pinch we could install a linux server, get Apache and MySql running, it will add extra support headaches for me.

My questions:

Can Modx us a MS SQL Server back end rather than My SQL?

Can it run using some version of PHP installed on IIS 6?

Am I crazy to even think of trying to get Modx running in an environment different from that recommended on this site?

Any advice would be greatly welcomed,

Thanks

Ken Ray

The higher-ups might not go for it, but you could always use a remote hosting service for the site. That would at least take installing, and maintaining a unix box and MySQL off the list. Most of my MODx sites are remote (I’m not sure where they all are, physically).

You can install XAMPP on a local Windows box to do the testing and development, then push changes to the remote site. XAMPP is a free, single install that includes the Apache Server, PHP, and MySQL (among other things). It’s very painless and you don’t have to actually know anything about *nix (though it doesn’t hurt to know a little) to install it, install MODx under it, and start using MODx.

The conversion from MS-SQL to MySQL of any existing data will depend on how much data you have and how complex the relationships are. I’m afraid I don’t know very much about that kind of data conversion.

At least it’s not three weeks.

Hope this helps.

Quote from: motoxer4533 at Oct 16, 2008, 12:01 PM

And a whole board dedicated to the subject:
http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/board,220.0.html

Reading through some of the posts, it doesn’t sound too promising - but its worth a shot to not have to install a new server, I guess. Good luck!

Thanks for those great links - I thought I had looked through the boards, but that windows hosting issues one eluded me. I expect that if we have to go with the MySQL back end, then there’s little advantage to be gained in trying to set the web site up on IIS / Windows Server 2003. We’ve got a spare server with sufficient horsepower and storage to install Linux, Apache, and the remaining suite, I was just hoping to avoid having to support a separate software environment.

I’m using an IIS server for one of my MODx sites.
As far as I understand it you can have PHP & MySQL running on your IIS box along with ASP & MSSql.
If you use something like ISAPI Rewrite for the FURL’s everything works fine.