Integrating an existing ASP.NET application into SharePoint

Question

What do I need to do to integrate an existing ASP.NET application into SharePoint? Are there any pitfalls, difficulties or is it a relatively easy process? I'm completely new to SharePoint. The version of the ASP.NET app is 3.5 The version of SharePoint is 3.0 (2007) running on IIS 6. Thanks

Answer 1

What do you mean when you say integrating? If your aim is just to display the asp.net solution inside of SharePoint you could just use the pageviewer webpart which is basically an IFrame to your asp.net hosted solution.

Answer 2

SInce Sharepoint is based on ASP.NET they interact without any problems. Our way of going about this is to encapsulate all ASP.NET functionality in USerControls / WebControls (so no actions are performed in actual .aspx pages, they all have basically one or more usercontrols on them that do the work), then use those in a WebPart or in the open source SmartPart.

Answer 3

Using Application Pages is a good choice. You can use your existing code for the most part. You'd just have to make sure your aspx page refers to the correct ContentPlaceHolder in order to fit nicely into the SharePoint UI.

Answer 4

Also, depending on the nature of the app, look at Data View Web Part, SSRS, and Business Data Connector