Computer Science 2005

Problem Statement:

The primary goal of this project is to provide valuable insight into the inner workings of the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) and .NET Frameworks so as to provide a strong comparative analysis of these technologies in terms of both their capabilities and performance for creating web applications.

Methodology

To gain insight into the problem domain I created a web application using both technologies. This served to form the basis for critical analysis of the capabilities of these applications, in particular with reference to data access, security, Web Services and XML, and performance

In addition, various tests were performed against the technologies. Tests were performed on two separate identical computers using benchmarking tools such as apache bench and the Visual Studio 2005 testing tools (web tests and load tests).

Conclusions in a Nutshell

From the research it is evident that both technologies are well suited to development within the web domain, however, ASP.NET is better suited to large-scale enterprise development. Although LAMP is comparable to ASP.NET in terms of performance and final product, development and maintenance of complex applications using LAMP is more intricate and problematic than the same with ASP.NET. While LAMP is ideal for smaller projects, and is capable of creating high-quality large scale applications, ASP.NET is better suited to larger scale development.