Rackspace Cloud Sites and ASP.NET 4

Question

I am looking at signing up for the Cloud Sites service from Rackspace, but I looking for practical experience anyone has had with their ASP.NET 4 'beta' program. I plan to develop in MVC3 moving forward and cannot consider the Cloud Sites service if ASP.NET 4 doesn't work well / correctly on their platform. Has anyone tried hosting an ASP.NET 4 / MVC 3 site on Cloud Sites? What was your experience like?

Answer 1

I've had Rackspace Cloud Sites for nearly a year now and it works very well for most client sites. However, I'm very disappointed that it has taken so long for them to support .Net 4.0, and forget about it if you want to use anything requiring anything above medium trust. I haven't found a single document database that will work yet, and when I've asked their support about this, the general answer they like to give is, "Upgrade to a Cloud Server". It's almost like they give you the bare minimum in the Sites option and then when something isn't supported they upsell you.

It doesn't sound like it but overall I'm pleased with most of their service. The .Net 4.0 Beta isn't bad -- I haven't had any issues with it and I have two sites on it. Just wish they'd open up their service a little and give us some real capabilities.

Answer 2

I have used Rackspace for several clients' servers in the past, and they have proven to be a very reliable company with excellent support. I have not used the specific plan that you mentioned, but they have demonstrated competency in a variety of Microsoft hosting services. You can be confident that the product you are considering is at the standard to which it is presented to be.

Answer 3

I am hosting a site using the Rackspace Cloud Sites beta for .net 4.0 and haven't had any problems. All the apps I've published have behaved the same locally and on the Rackspace servers.

Answer 4

Just to update, Rackspace Cloud now supports .Net 4.0. You have to request this upgrade via a support ticket or live chat. I've actually done it, support can do it in just a couple of minutes and it works like a champ.

http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/cloud_hosting_faq/

Is .NET 4.0 supported on Cloud Sites™?

.NET 4.0 is currently available on our Cloud Sites environment. If you would like to have .NET 4.0 enabled on your site, please contact Support via ticket, chat, or phone.

UPDATE Q3 2012: You can now select .Net 4.0 as a default technology when you're setting up a Cloud Site. .Net 4.5 support is pending.

UPDATE Q3 2013: You can now select .Net 4.5 as a default technology. Pretty sweet!