web.Config vs Database Settings table

Question

When you have a system of multiple application, web services and windows services, which is better option?

Option 1) Put all settings in database table and cache it somewhere, probably you will have to use a web service to share the cache object across applications. You can then view some of those settings in a grid for user manipulation.

Option 2) Put all settings in a common configuration file, and let web.config or app.config of each application points to that file, I am sure there is a way to put those settings in a grid, but probably you will lose the capability of "showing settings based on Role".

Thanks

Answer 1

A lot of this comes down to preference, what settings you're talking about, when you need access to the settings, and how often they'll change.

Generally, I try and keep my web.config & app.config pretty small. Settings for infrastructural things (e.g. modules to load, connectionstrings, log settings, ORM settings, etc) go in there. Anything that I really need or want to have access to on App_start or in my Main() method, basically.

Anything more complex, or that's applicable to less of the application, etc, I generally don't put in the config files, but instead either have settings objects which I inject through my IoC container, or else pull them from a database.

Answer 2

I prefer option 1, as it makes deployments easier, as each environment can have different configurations, yet you're still able to do a xcopy deploy, as settings aren't stored in the web.config.