Some questions about Dotnetnuke

I have got some questions about Dotnetnuke:

1. Can i create/run multiple websites having only VS 2010 installed or do i need IIS(Express) ?
2. Does a website create a physical map on your 开发者_C百科harddrive ?
3. Can DNN be seen as a SharePoint "alternative" ?
4. Once a site is in production can it handle a big workload ?

Thx for any answer.

1. What I normally do is configure a local IIS (the real deal) to run the DNN installation (in C:\InetPub\yada...) and then create individual solutions in the DesktopModules folder for my custom modules. I don't like loading the entire DNN site into VS unless I'm actually doing something directly to DNN.

2. Not sure what you mean by this question. DNN does have a folder structure that is required for it to run.

3. I don't have a lot of SharePoint experience, but DNN is a pretty good content management system. There are plenty of resources out there that cover this topic such as this post.

4. It depends on how well you configure caching and what custom "stuff" you have going on in the background. This is like any web project, though. www.dotnetnuke.com is a DotNetNuke installation and handles a pretty heft workload. There are plenty of places to fine-tune your installation and so this shouldn't be a problem, depending on how you define a "big workload."

In terms of #1, you _can) use the built-in web server (Cassini) with Visual Studio, but you'll have to run the whole DNN website, not just the one module. Like @James, we usually use IIS, it's simpler.