IIS - Microsoft WEB Server
Everybody knows what the Internet is, but not many people know where all the web sites on the World Wide Web are running. Let's focus on the fundamentals of web services, from Microsoft's point of view.
Web services in general have come a long way since the early days of the Internet. The technological improvements over the years have been enormous. If you have any experience from previous versions of Internet Information Services (IIS), and specifically those based on the Microsoft Windows NT 4 platform, then you'll know what I'm talking about! Those of you which have been working for several years can recall not having such a great time with IIS, especially when it came to security, integration and performance. You might also recall bad experiences from clustering scenarios and from anything needed to be scaled up or scaled out. Back then, "web services" were a new thing, and Microsoft was not on the cutting edge at all. Also, organizations tried to use IIS in a manner that was not ready to perform because the use of web applications were rising exponentially over the late 90' and, unfortunately, Microsoft was always left behind.
This has changed quite much in the latest IIS version 7 that comes with Windows 2008. I was never a big Microsoft fan, but I know that Microsoft has a history of making things better and making things ready as time progresses. Many of Microsoft's products have become the default in the industry and IIS 7.0 has, for the first time, the potential to achieve that goal.
Let's see some of the improvements that come along with the latest IIS version 7. In the past, the default installation was installing a lot of services that weren't. This is not the case anymore - there is no unnecessary overhead, and nothing is installed unless you choose it to. Only a portion of everything is installed by default. By not installing all the modules, there is both less memory requirement and also less of an attach surface, so there will be less security issues coming up. This is called modular architecture.
Microsoft also introduces a security feature called Request Filtering. This built-in component filters requests in real time, based on the words used, file extension, size, namespace or sequences. Some of these functions were previously covered in URLScan, a wide-spread free utility. Another improvement is remote administration, which was absent in previous versions. There is also a command line installation method. This method is suggested if you are working as an administrator - if you script the whole installation process, it will be much easier for you to rebuild everything in the event it has to be. If you are a command line enthusiast, then you will love the capabilities the command line environment gives you. Any kind of automation is possible from there.
Fortunately, compatibility with your older applications is present, so don't forget to install IIS 6 Management Compatibility, which can help you maintain compatibility with your older environment.
Web services in general have come a long way since the early days of the Internet. The technological improvements over the years have been enormous. If you have any experience from previous versions of Internet Information Services (IIS), and specifically those based on the Microsoft Windows NT 4 platform, then you'll know what I'm talking about! Those of you which have been working for several years can recall not having such a great time with IIS, especially when it came to security, integration and performance. You might also recall bad experiences from clustering scenarios and from anything needed to be scaled up or scaled out. Back then, "web services" were a new thing, and Microsoft was not on the cutting edge at all. Also, organizations tried to use IIS in a manner that was not ready to perform because the use of web applications were rising exponentially over the late 90' and, unfortunately, Microsoft was always left behind.
This has changed quite much in the latest IIS version 7 that comes with Windows 2008. I was never a big Microsoft fan, but I know that Microsoft has a history of making things better and making things ready as time progresses. Many of Microsoft's products have become the default in the industry and IIS 7.0 has, for the first time, the potential to achieve that goal.
Let's see some of the improvements that come along with the latest IIS version 7. In the past, the default installation was installing a lot of services that weren't. This is not the case anymore - there is no unnecessary overhead, and nothing is installed unless you choose it to. Only a portion of everything is installed by default. By not installing all the modules, there is both less memory requirement and also less of an attach surface, so there will be less security issues coming up. This is called modular architecture.
Microsoft also introduces a security feature called Request Filtering. This built-in component filters requests in real time, based on the words used, file extension, size, namespace or sequences. Some of these functions were previously covered in URLScan, a wide-spread free utility. Another improvement is remote administration, which was absent in previous versions. There is also a command line installation method. This method is suggested if you are working as an administrator - if you script the whole installation process, it will be much easier for you to rebuild everything in the event it has to be. If you are a command line enthusiast, then you will love the capabilities the command line environment gives you. Any kind of automation is possible from there.
Fortunately, compatibility with your older applications is present, so don't forget to install IIS 6 Management Compatibility, which can help you maintain compatibility with your older environment.
