From the outset we opted for the Microsoft platform. We consider Microsoft's suite of products to be reliable, robust and above all - proven. Our coding is partly asp classic and partly asp.net while the database that we decided on was Microsoft's SQL Server. We considered the free, open source MySQL database but decided that it wasn't robust, secure or scalable enough for our clients. Our clients should demand the robustness of a recognized database such as Microsoft SQL Server, IBM's DB2 or Oracle.