What Is Padarn?
Padarn is a very small-footprint ASP.NET web server designed for applications where you need a lightweight, easy-to-deploy and easy-to-configure web server. Typical installations include Windows Embedded Compact (Windows CE) and Windows Embedded Standard (Windows Embedded XP) but Padarn will run on any Windows Desktop environment (well anything that can host the .NET Framework - we've not tested anything released before Windows XP).
Padarn provides an ever-growing subset of Microsoft's ASP.NET APIs which allow OEMs to leverage existing ASP.NET code and ASP.NET developer resources to get their product to market faster. Using Padarn also helps facilitate sharing code bases across platforms.
Some typical uses for Padarn include:
Simply put, if you have a device that you would like to remotely configure, update, query data from or run reports on then Padarn is the solution for you.
How much does Padarn cost?
Padarn licensing starts at $3,000, which covers a vast majority of customer scenarios (we've only had one customer that needed more). Padarn licenses are what we call a "Forever License". Once you're licensed, you can always upgrade your devices to any newer version of Padarn for free for as long as you're in business. No annual costs, no version upgrade costs.
We believe that the best way to document a product like Padarn is through a set of hands-on labs (HOLS) showing how to use it. We are constantly working to provide labs for common customer requests and features, so if you don't see something that covers your scenario, feel free to let us know.
The HOL download above (last updated on February 2, 2012) includes the labs below. In some cases we have the code done but not the lab manual. In those cases, we've included the code wiothout a manual becasue even code alone can be a useful example for features.
Even with hands-on labs, we recognize that many developers like a good set of API documentation.
Click here to view the MSDN-style documentation of the Padarn APIs