IIS 6 Administration

The following is a checklist for familiarizing yourself with the new features of version 6 of IIS. Read them through and check off which ones are important to you when considering migrating your existing IIS 4 and 5 servers to IIS 6:

• HTTP request handling has been moved to the kernel for greater reliability and better performance.

• User-developed code is completely isolated from core web server processes for improved stability and reliability.

• Web applications can be grouped together into multiple application pools for simplified administration and greater flexibility.

• Multiple worker processes can be assigned to the same application pool for improved reliability and greater responsiveness.

• A special IIS 5 compatibility mode can be used for older applications that have trouble running under the new IIS 6 architecture.

• A new XML metabase provides administrators with the flexibility of configuring IIS 6 by manually editing the metabase file using a text editor like Notepad, even while IIS is running.

• A metabase history feature allows you to revert to previous metabase versions easily to recover from problems arising from configuration changes.

• Portions of the metabase can be imported and exported easily, providing administrators with the flexibility of copying directories, sites, or entire servers from one physical machine to another.

• IIS 6 installs in a locked-down mode by default that serves up only static HTML files, and it must be opened up using the Web Service Extensions (WSE) node before web applications can work. This makes IIS 6 a more secure platform than earlier versions that were installed in a wide-open mode by default.

• Worker processes are assigned the NetworkService identity as their security context by default. This identity has few privileges in order to make web applications more secure.

• Worker process identities can be manually configured to completely isolate web applications on an IIS 6 machine, providing enhanced security and greater reliability.

• IIS 6 supports .NET Passport as an authentication method, providing greater flexibility for developing secure, scalable web applications.

• Improved caching heuristics and support for cache sizes up to 64GB allow both static and dynamic content to be cached by IIS, providing a significant performance boost over earlier versions.

• For greater flexibility, IIS 6 can be administered a variety of ways including MMC console, WMI, ADSI, Terminal Services, scripts, and improved browser-based administration.

• Fewer reboots are required after configuration changes, resulting in less downtime for mission-critical applications running on IIS.

• Improvements in ISAPI to allow developers to create better web applications running on IIS.

• A new “Blade” version of Windows Server 2003 has been designed for high-availability rack-mountable servers running in large datacenters.