CODEWITHSUNDEEP
asp.netcontent-management-system
Matt
Matt

Reputation: 1911

Architecture ideas to allow customers to build their own site, based off external site's data?

I'm not entirely sure how to properly ask this, so please bear with me.

I have an idea for a site I would like to build, which would basically be a site for members to create some data and have it housed in my database. I would like to offer a value-add to the site which would allow people to spin off their own website via my own "website builder" tool (probably some sort of CMS). Their website would be able to communicate with my master database to display their data.

Getting down to the crux of the topic, I'm looking for architectural advice/ideas/etc. regarding what services I could use to do this. I'm not looking a 100% automated solution, but something along these lines (which may not be completely correct, I admit):

In the research I have done on SO, I've seen a lot of mentions of Umbraco which honestly looks like a good start. I'm just worried that when I go to upgrade a version, I have to deal with overwriting my custom API functionality. I'm guessing this is the nature of the beast, and requires me to accept/plan for it.

Does anyone have any thoughts about this? Some high-level starting points? Thanks!

Upvotes: 1

Views: 128

Answers (1)

Larry K
Larry K

Reputation: 49104

I've been thinking about this same issue for my customers.

It is not hard to automatically roll out a stock cms such as Wordpress or Joomla. This sort of thing is done all the time by "1 click installers" that DreamHost and others have.

Including custom widgets or plugins for the CMS that can connect to your main app is also not hard.

For dns, you can use Amazon Route 53 or other DNS services that include a good api at the dns management level.

I suggest that you focus on using a CMS that is very popular (eg Wordpress or Joomla) rather than something less well known such as Umbraco. Using a more popular system will drastically reduce your training costs--remember that if you supply the CMS to your customers, then they'll also expect you to supply the support for it...

Upvotes: -1

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