DotNetNuke 5 User's Guide-Get Your Website Up and Running

DotNetNuke (DNN) is an open source web application framework that can provide CMS functionality.
Where DNN differs from other CMSs is the extensibility that it provides through the use of add-ons,
known as extensions. DNN can be used for many different types of websites, from the simplest of personal
websites to the most complex enterprise internal and external sites. Later in the book we will go
into how to configure DNN to work in some common website scenarios.
DNN runs on Microsoft .NET, a platform designed to allow a variety of programming languages to be
used for developing applications that can run on Microsoft-based operating systems. DNN is written
in the VB.NET language, the latest iteration of Microsoft Visual Basic. DNN is the largest and most
utilized open source project running on the Microsoft platform, with more than 700,000 registered users
at DotNetNuke.com.
Because DNN runs on the .NET Framework, you can configure the application to run on web servers
powered by Microsoft operating systems, including Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 2003,
Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008. DNN is a database-driven application, storing most of the
pertinent information for the content and settings for a website in a defined database structure running
on Microsoft’s SQL Server, a database server. In most cases, the database server software can run on the
same computer as the web server.Websites that receive a lot of traffic can experience performance issues,
so putting the database on a standalone server is a common practice....