Running a test server at home has many challenges. First off your network is most likely not designed to run wide area applications exposed such as web pages. Second the home hardware is not the same quality as professional hardware. Third hardware is becomes quickly expensive to justify for testing at home. Forth your home wide area network provider may not allow exposed services. Finally your home machine should be set to install updates as available which may automatically bounce your system when your not around.
Although all of these issues have many ways to address, I’ll go over some simple tricks to help reduce some of these issues. This does not mean I can solve your issues with your network provider but most other areas you can reduce issues with.
Tools:
Windows Vista/7
Microsoft Security Essentials
Team Viewer
VMware Server
Oracle Linux/Centos
Quad/Hex Core processor
Memory (8GB-24GB)
Goals:
Install a test database and web server which can be accessed from the outside world to test and demo application features.
Other options:
Hosting solutions are available from many sites these are fairly inexpensive but often have different limitations and performance issues when dealing with large test databases. Amazon Cloud Solutions (AWS) currently has a free micro cloud offering for 12 months but then you will need to address this cost on going and move your tool.