URL Design for SSL-Secured SaaS Application

Question

I am developing an application using the ASP.NET MVC platform, which will be exposed as a service over the web (the SaaS model). I am trying to determine the best way to partit

Answer 1

You're right Will, A and B are the same. However, I think that is true mainly from a coding perspective. With either option, the web server will determine the account based on the host name in the HTTP header. C is slightly different from a coding perspective because it would match the account based on the path under the domain name, and the ASP.NET MVC framework's URL routing capabilities would come in handy here.

From an administrative perspective each option is quite different. With option A we would have to manage the subdomains... which we can do because our DNS provider has an API to manage host records. With option B we would have to manage the private keys for all the different domain names, as I mentioned.

I'm guessing from the number of responses that this is not the best type of question to ask on this forum, probably because it is too open ended. I was just hoping that someone who has been there and done that would chime in, mainly so I know if I'm even on the right track, as I've never designed a system like this before.

Thanks