What is the dificulty in writing a DP for connecting to DNN? There is a MySQL ADO.Net provider that can be found at http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/net/5.1.html. It even integrates into VS. Being new to DNN my self, I have not had time as of yet to review all the data layer objects. Do modules use their own dataconnectors or use a core connector?

Thank you,
Eric Ritzie

Understood. I'm a heavy MS SQL user my self and fully understand the benefits of SPs, but MS SQL is not the only one to support this capability. From what you said, it seems to me to that there is a fundamental design flaw if the modules are built in such a way that you must convert them all to use the alternate DB. When I design and code enterprise level applications that allow modules to be attached, I always build the core app and all the modules to communicate with the DB from a core data layer. This prevents the exact issue that you describe. The only time a module of an application should use anything other then the core data provider is in rare and special instances where the data needed is not contained in the core DB.

My interest in using MySQL as opposed to MS SQL is cost. With my hosting I can have up to 500 MySQL databases at no extra cost, but have to pay an extra $10 a month for a single 300mb MS SQL database. There's a big difference between free and $1200 p/y.

As others have pointed out in other threads, it's amazing that a CMS system such as DNN prides it's self on being OpenSource, but yet shackles it's self to a ClosedSource DBMS such as MS SQL.