BACKEND DEVELOPMENT

SERVER-SIDE EXCELLENCE

Reliable, Scalable Backend Platforms

Backend web development Mission Beach — ASP.NET Core, Classic ASP, PHP

The backend is where the real work happens. Business logic, API design, authentication, session management, data validation, file handling, background jobs, and database integration — all of it runs server-side, invisible to users but absolutely critical to how your application performs and behaves. We write clean, well-structured backend code that handles load gracefully, fails safely, and is maintainable by the developers who come after us.

One thing that genuinely sets ELECTRICLATTE apart is our expertise in the Microsoft IIS and ASP ecosystem. We are one of the few agencies in Australia still actively developing and maintaining Classic ASP (VBScript) applications — not reluctantly, but because we understand that many businesses depend on these systems and deserve a development partner who won't pressure them into a premature, expensive rebuild. We extend, fix, and modernise Classic ASP applications on your timeline.

ASP.NET CORE

Cross-platform, high-performance web APIs and MVC applications on the modern .NET stack — deployed to Azure, IIS, or Linux containers.

CLASSIC ASP (VBSCRIPT)

Active specialists in Classic ASP development, maintenance, bug fixing, and security patching — including legacy IIS/MSSQL and IIS/MySQL stacks.

PHP

PHP development including Laravel APIs, WordPress custom plugins, WooCommerce extensions, and bespoke PHP backends.

BACKEND CAPABILITIES IN DETAIL

The Server-Side Technologies We Work With

Our backend practice spans modern .NET, PHP, and legacy Classic ASP — giving us a wider range of capabilities than most regional agencies. Here's what we do in each area.

ASP.NET Core Web APIs

ASP.NET Core is Microsoft's cross-platform, open-source successor to the classic .NET Framework. We build RESTful Web APIs using controller-based or Minimal API patterns, implement JWT and OAuth 2.0 authentication, apply structured logging with Serilog, and configure dependency injection for testable, maintainable code. ASP.NET Core APIs run on Windows (IIS or Kestrel), Linux containers, or Azure App Service — giving you deployment flexibility without rewriting code. For data access, we use Entity Framework Core for code-first database management, or Dapper where raw SQL performance is critical.

ASP.NET Core MVC & Razor Pages

For server-rendered web applications — intranets, admin portals, content management systems, and customer-facing portals — ASP.NET Core MVC and Razor Pages remain highly productive and performant. We build MVC applications with clean separation of controllers, services, and data access layers, implement model validation, use Tag Helpers for clean view markup, and integrate with Bootstrap for responsive layouts. Server-rendered applications are simpler to deploy, easier to test, and less error-prone than SPAs for many business application use cases.

Classic ASP (VBScript) — Specialists

Classic ASP was Microsoft's web platform of the late 1990s and 2000s, and a large number of Australian business systems still run on it today — particularly in industries like government, finance, aged care, and manufacturing where application replacement cycles are long and budgets are constrained. We maintain and develop Classic ASP applications on IIS running against SQL Server or MySQL, fix bugs, patch security vulnerabilities, add new features, and build integration points between old ASP systems and modern APIs. We can also help you assess migration paths to ASP.NET Core when the time is right — and plan a migration that preserves business logic rather than starting from scratch.

PHP & Laravel

PHP powers a significant portion of the web, including WordPress, Magento, and a huge number of bespoke applications. We write modern PHP (8.x) using the Laravel framework for structured, testable application development — RESTful APIs with Laravel Sanctum or Passport authentication, queue-based background processing with Laravel Horizon, and event-driven architectures with broadcasting. For simpler projects, we also work with plain PHP or Symfony. For WordPress sites, we build custom themes, complex plugins, WooCommerce extensions, and REST API integrations that go well beyond what off-the-shelf plugins can provide.

REST API Design & Integration

Modern applications rarely run in isolation — they consume and expose APIs that connect CRMs, payment gateways, accounting platforms, shipping providers, and third-party services. We design RESTful APIs with consistent resource naming, appropriate HTTP verb usage, versioning strategies, and thorough OpenAPI (Swagger) documentation. On the integration side, we build reliable connectors to third-party APIs — handling authentication flows, rate limiting, retry logic, and webhook receivers. Whether you need to expose your data to external partners or pull data from a dozen external sources, we make the plumbing work reliably.

Authentication & Authorisation

Security starts in the backend. We implement authentication using industry-standard patterns — OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect for federated identity (Microsoft Entra ID, Google, Auth0), JWT bearer tokens for stateless API authentication, and ASP.NET Core Identity for self-contained credential management. Authorisation is implemented using role-based access control (RBAC) and policy-based claims, so different user types see different data and can perform different actions. We also implement common security hardening: CSRF protection, rate limiting on auth endpoints, secure cookie configuration, and structured logging of authentication events for audit purposes.

OUR APPROACH

How We Work on Backend Projects

We don't arrive with a predetermined answer. Before writing a line of code, we understand your business requirements, your existing infrastructure constraints, your team's ability to maintain the result, and any regulatory or performance obligations that apply. The right technology choice falls out of that understanding — not from a preference for whichever framework we used last week.

Every backend system we build is designed with operational concerns in mind from the start: structured logging so problems are diagnosable in production, health check endpoints for monitoring, graceful shutdown handling, and configuration management that doesn't require a code change to move between environments.

We're also explicit about what we don't do: we don't over-engineer. A small business application doesn't need microservices, event sourcing, or a CQRS architecture. We match the complexity of the solution to the problem — and we'll tell you if we think a simpler approach will serve you better in the long run.

Backend Technologies We Use

  • ASP.NET Core 6 / 7 / 8 (Web API, MVC, Minimal API)
  • Classic ASP (VBScript) on Microsoft IIS
  • PHP 8.x — Laravel, Symfony, WordPress
  • Entity Framework Core & Dapper
  • OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect / JWT
  • Docker containers & Azure App Service deployment
COMMON QUESTIONS

Backend Development — Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, and it's something we actively specialise in. We're one of very few Australian agencies with genuine Classic ASP development capability — not just the ability to read old code, but to write new features, fix bugs, patch security issues, and extend functionality in a way that's idiomatic for the platform. We work on Classic ASP systems running on IIS connected to SQL Server or MySQL, and we understand the quirks of VBScript, ADO, COM components, and Session/Application state that make Classic ASP different from modern platforms.

Migration is worth considering when Classic ASP is genuinely holding you back — for example, if you can't run on a supported Windows Server version, if you need to containerise, if SSL configuration is becoming a problem, or if recruiting developers to maintain it is difficult. It's probably not worth the cost and risk if the application is stable, well-tested, and functioning correctly. We'll give you an honest assessment rather than selling you a migration project you don't need. If migration is the right call, we plan it incrementally — API-first, with new ASP.NET Core endpoints replacing Classic ASP pages one at a time rather than a risky big-bang rewrite.

Both are excellent choices for most web application projects, and the best answer depends on factors like your existing infrastructure, your internal team's skills, hosting preferences, and whether you're in a Microsoft-heavy environment. ASP.NET Core has a performance edge for high-throughput APIs and integrates naturally with Azure and the Microsoft toolchain. PHP and Laravel have a larger hosting ecosystem, lower entry cost, and better fit for projects that need a rich ecosystem of open-source packages. We'll recommend whichever is the better fit for your specific project rather than defaulting to one or the other.

Yes, and we consider testability a design constraint, not an afterthought. For ASP.NET Core applications, we write xUnit unit tests for business logic and integration tests for API endpoints using WebApplicationFactory. For Laravel applications, we use PHPUnit with Laravel's built-in test helpers. We encourage CI pipelines that run the test suite on every pull request so regressions are caught early. For Classic ASP projects, automated testing is more limited by the platform, but we use manual regression checklists and scripted smoke tests where unit testing isn't possible.
Backend development team
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