BillS IIS Blog : IIS7

Lot’s of new software for IIS, ASP.NET, AJAX and PHP this week

bills — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:13:44 GMT

Wow, what a week of innovation for the Microsoft Web Platform. This week we released a ton of new software which, if you haven’t already, you’ve got to check out. Here is a quick overview:

IIS Search Engine Optimization v1 final release!

The IIS team shipped the final release of IIS SEO toolkit which makes it easier to optimize your Website for search engines. It acts like a mini-search engine on your computer, scans your site and then provides useful tips for how to improve the relevance of your site to search engines. This tool is now out of beta and available for download through Web PI.

ASP.NET MVC 2 beta!

The ASP.NET team has been hard at work on the second release of MVC, which is now available to beta test. Phil has a great blog post on the release with links to the download page, readme notes and the source code. There are a bunch of new features in MVC 2 including AsyncController, expression based helpers, improvements with client validation, all new areas support, and more. Read more on Phil’s blog.

ASP.NET AJAX Library beta!

The ASP.NET AJAX team also has some exciting news with the release of the ASP.NET AJAX Library beta. James has a terrific blog post with the news This is the first project accepted into the new CodePlex Foundation! (more on that later) The ASP.NET AJAX Library has a new portal at www.asp.net/ajaxlibrary with tutorials, samples, and more. Read James’ post about the news and check it out!

IIS Application Request Router 2 final release!

The IIS team also released the final version of the IIS Application Request Router v2. This is a super powerful module that provides routing and load balancing capabilities for Windows and IIS. It makes it easy to create and manage an entire cluster of Web servers. Mai-lan has a lot of info on the release in her blog post and you can download ARR v2 using Web PI today.

PHP WinCache module final release - faster PHP on Windows!

The PHP team announced today the final release of the Windows Cache Extension for PHP, or WinCache for short, which makes PHP run much, much faster on Windows. The iBuildings guys released a benchmark showing how the WinCache extension speeds up PHP by as much as 2x over standard PHP. The other exciting part of this announcement is that the sources for the extension are now available under an open source BSD license and the source code is maintained and host on http://pecl.php.net/packages/wincache/ If you install PHP using Web PI, you automatically get WinCache.

IIS 7.5 Launched with Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2

bills — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:02:17 GMT

Since the Windows 2008 Server launch last March, the IIS team has shipped a bunch of new features that plug-in to IIS7 and in parallel worked on IIS 7.5, launching today in the Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 release.

IIS 7.5 includes many bug fixes, improvements and new features, and is definitely worth grabbing. If you haven’t tried IIS7 yet, check out the many reasons to try it. If you’re already using IIS7 and want to know what’s new in IIS 7.5, Mai-lan just posted an update to her blog with a nice summary. Note: the IIS Extensions which are not already included in IIS 7.5 will install and work on Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2!

IIS Media Services 3.0 Released!

bills — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:26:58 GMT

IIS Media Services 3.0 has been released and is now available as a free download for Windows 2008 and Windows 2008 R2! Chris Knowlton has a comprehensive post on the release and all the details, here is a quick summary:

IIS Media Services, an integrated HTTP-based media delivery platform, delivers true HD (720p+) streaming and provides real-time logging to measure media investments. By offering a complete media delivery platform together with a traditional Web server, rich dynamic Web sites can now be managed and administered from a single Web platform. IIS Media Services offers the highest quality streaming media experience available on the Web.

Server Features:

With this release, the key elements of the IIS media server platform now include:

· Smooth Streaming, adaptive streaming of media over HTTP

· Live Smooth Streaming, for live adaptive streaming of broadcast events

· Bit Rate Throttling, meters the speed that media is delivered to a player

· Web Playlists, secure sequencing of media content

· Advanced Logging, with real-time client- and server-side logging

· Application Request Routing (ARR), providing HTTP proxying and caching

Client / SDK Features:

We have also released a Smooth Streaming Player Development Kit, which allows developers to easily create Smooth Streaming experiences using Silverlight. Supported features include PlayReady, DVR controls, instant replay, slow motion, multiple camera angles, alternate audio tracks, content protection, ad integration, in-stream data feeds, and more.

Download IIS Media Services today, and let us know what you think in our Forum.

A big day for Web pros: WebsiteSpark, Web PI and more!

bills — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:11:43 GMT

Today we’re launching a number of really cool things for Web developers.

WebsiteSpark

WebsiteSpark is a program designed to jumpstart Web development for individuals or small companies who make a living on the Web. The program is free to join and runs for three years with no cost obligations other than a $100 program fee, payable on exit. What is in it for you?

Windows Web Server 2008 R2 – 4 processor licenses for production use!
SQL Server 2008 – 4 processor licenses for production use!
Expression Studio 3 – 1 license including Expression Web, Blend and Sketchflow
Expression Web – 2 licenses
Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition – 3 licenses
DotNetPanel control panel (to manage your servers, and allow your customers to manage their site!)

Beyond just software you also get free support, training and Microsoft will even help drive business your way. Anyone can join as long as 1) you build web sites or applications for other people and 2) your company has less than 10 employees. If you meet these requirements, sign-up today! As part of the sign-up process you will need a referral code. Contact me if you need a code, I’d be happy to sponsor you into the program! Read more about the program on the WebsiteSpark portal.

Web Platform Installer 2

I’m also happy to announce that the Web Platform Installer 2.0 is available in final release form! The Web Platform Installer (sometimes called Web PI) makes it easy to install the latest components of the Microsoft Web Platform including IIS, ASP.NET, Visual Web Developer, SQL Express and more! New for the final release, we’ve fixed many bugs, improved usability, added new products including Expression Web, Azure Tools and the latest releases also being announced today. We’re also launching WebPI in 9 different languages and allow users around the world to access the Web Platform in their regional language. Look for more components of the Microsoft Web Platform to be added to Web PI v2 over time. Web PI also makes it super easy to install any of the Web applications in the Windows Web App Gallery. Web PI can also now install both PHP and MySQL for applications that require it. Install Web PI today!

Trivia: since launching the Windows Web Application Gallery at MIX in March 2009 – just 5 months ago – Web PI has installed more than 840,000 applications! Do you have a killer Web application just waiting to be discovered by the masses? Want Microsoft to drive users to your community? Submit your Web app to the gallery today!

Web Deployment Tool

The IIS team just released the final 1.0 version of the Web Deployment Tool, a super powerful deployment technology that you are going to see a lot of going forward. It is like a swiss army knife for Web masters. It can migrate sites or entire servers from IIS6 to IIS7. It can synchronize Web sites or applications between multiple servers. You can package a Web site or application and then push it out to your entire server farm. It knows how to not only replicate content, but also configuration, databases, COM dll, GAC assemblies, certificates, ACLs, and a whole lot more. After about three years of development I’m super excited to see this thing in final release form. It is already being integrated into Visual Studio 2010 and from there you’ll be able to not only build but also package and deploy your applications with just a few clicks of the mouse. Other teams around Microsoft are picking this thing up and integrating it as well, so you definitely want to get up to speed with this tool. Download it today!!

Database Manager 1.0

The IIS team just released the 1.0 version of Database Manager, and IIS Manager extension that makes it super easy to manage your database, local or remote, from within the IIS Manager tool. This thing rocks! It supports SQL Server and MySQL and is one powerful tool, and completely free. Check it out!

Search Engine Optimization Toolkit – Beta 2

The IIS team also announced the released the beta 2 of the Search Engine Optimization Toolkit, another IIS Manager extension that makes it possible to learn things about your site you can’t find anywhere else. It crawls your Web site, local or remote, and reports on dozens of well known but hard to discover issues that cause your site to be less relevant to search engines. This version includes many bugs fixes and new features over the previous release, definitely check it out and send feedback to the team on the forums.

Application Request Routing 2 – Release Candidate

The IIS team is also releasing a Release Candidate of the 2.0 version of the Application Request Routing extension for IIS7/IIS7.5, which provides built-in routing, load balancing, proxying and caching support on the IIS platform. This release includes an all-new disk cache option, bug fixes and performance improvements. Read more about the release in the learn portal. This powerful extension is available for free, download it today!

New Experiences @MIX from the Microsoft Web Platform

bills — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:19:49 GMT

Today is a BIG day for the Microsoft Web Platform and a BIG day for the WEB. I’m down in Las Vegas at MIX and I just got off stage from the keynote where I demo’d just one of the many exciting and cool new things that make the Microsoft Web Platform better than ever. For example:

Using the new Web Platform Installer 2.0 beta, you can now download and install all of the technologies that make up the Microsoft Web Platform, and some of the world’s most popular Web applications, in one simple tool.
With the new Windows Web App Gallery, you can now discover world-class ASP.NET and PHP applications, read reviews from the community, and submit your own comments, as well as launch installation of an application in one click right from the browser.
With IIS Media Services, a free addition to the IIS7 Web server, you can now provide high definition audio and video streams LIVE and on demand.
With the final release of ASP.NET MVC 1.0, you can now build applications in the popular Modal-View-Controller paradigm, have complete control over your HTML and CSS, and build inherently testable applications
With the upcoming Visual Studio 10 release, we announced you can now package and deploy applications from right within the Visual Studio development environment, including support for multiple deployment configuration targets
In conjunction with the Silverlight 3 release, we’re also shipping a beta of Silverlight Tools 3, a Visual Studio development environment for building Silverlight Applications.
The IIS team is also introducing 10 new IIS7 extensions which extend the capabilities of the already powerful Web server to do things like:

Built-in Database management support, integrated with IIS Manager
Application Request Routing (ARR v2 beta) which includes advanced routing and load balancing capabilities, built-in to IIS7, including all-new proxy/cache support
Brand new content publishing features with FTP 7.5 and WebDAV 7.5
The final release of the IIS7 PowerShell support for managing the Web server from the command line using PowerShell
Web server migration, Web farm synchronization and application packaging and deployment support using the release candidate version of the Web Deployment tool.

With Commerce Server 2009, you can now more easily deploy enterprise-grade commerce-enabled sites using built-in SharePoint support.

All said, this is an amazing amount of innovation and I’m very proud of my team and the many hours they put into creating these very compelling new experiences. Try it out today, and tell us what you think!

More Tips and Troubleshooting Help for Classic ASP Developers

bills — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 23:10:18 GMT

Back in May of 2007 I posted a tips for Classic ASP developers post which has since received more than 50 comments and 85,000 views. Robert McMurray just posted a set of fabulous tutorials for Classic ASP developers. If you’re out there and having issues with Classic ASP and IIS7 and need some help, you’re not alone! Read these articles to get help:

Classic ASP is not installed by default on IIS 7.0 and IIS 7.5

In IIS 7.0 and 7.5, the classic version of ASP is not installed by default. Because of this, you might see HTTP 404 errors when you try to browse to an ASP page on your server, or you might see the source code for your ASP page displayed in your browser window ...

Using Classic ASP with Microsoft Access Databases on IIS 7.0 and IIS 7.5

Note: Microsoft Access databases have been popular for many years with developers who use Active Server Pages (ASP) for small-scale applications, but Microsoft Access databases are not designed for scalability, therefore Access databases should only be used ...

Classic ASP script error messages are no longer shown in a Web browser by default

In earlier versions of IIS, error messages from classic ASP scripts were sent to a Web browser, by default. Because these error messages might reveal sensitive information to malicious users, IIS 7.0 disables this feature by default. When your classic ASP ...

Using Failed Request Tracing to troubleshoot Classic ASP errors

One of the great troubleshooting features that is built in to IIS 7.0 is Failed Request Tracing, which lets you configure tracing rules on your server that will create detailed troubleshooting log files for custom failure conditions that you define. For example ...

Classic ASP parent paths are disabled by default

Classic ASP Parent Paths let developers use relative addresses that contain ".." in the paths to files or folders. For example, the following code excerpt illustrates an ASP page that maps a parent path: % Response.Write Server.MapPath("../example.asp")%> ...

APPL_PHYSICAL_PATH Server Variable on Windows Vista RTM

The original release of IIS 7.0 that shipped with Windows Vista returned a different value for the APPL_PHYSICAL_PATH server variable than that which was returned by previous

IIS7 request routing and load balancing module released!

bills — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 02:06:29 GMT

The Application Request Router (ARR) has reached final release and is now available as a free, fully-supported download for IIS7! ARR enables Web server administrators and hosting providers and to increase Web application reliability and scalability through rule-based routing and load balancing of HTTP server requests. With ARR, administrators can optimize resource utilization for application servers to reduce management costs for Web farms and shared hosting environments. Read more about the key scenarios and features of ARR on the IIS.net/extension site.

For more information on the ARR release, including new features just added as well as links to documentation and how-to get started, see Won’s blog post (Won ran the ARR project and is the Program Manager for the feature team).

Download ARR v1 today! You can download ARR, and all of the other cool IIS7 extensions, with the Web Platform Installer (Web PI). Web PI has been updated to include the ARR release and makes it super easy to install the entire platform – IIS, ASP.NET, SQL Express and even our development tools like Visual Web Developer Express. Web PI is always up to date with the latest new features and fixes for all the technologies that make up the Microsoft Web Platform. You can also find direct download links for X86 and x64 on Won’s blog post, if you prefer.

Microsoft Web Platform Installer v1.0 Released!

bills — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:03:49 GMT

I’m excited to announce the immediate availability of the Microsoft Web Platform Installer v 1.0. The Web Platform Installer (Web PI) is a simple tool that makes it very easy to download and install Microsoft's entire Web Platform in one step, including IIS, Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and the .NET Framework. Using the Web Platform Installer’s user interface, you can choose to install either specific products or the entire Microsoft Web Platform onto your computer. The Web PI also helps keep your products up to date by always offering the latest additions to the Web Platform. Web PI 1.0 supports Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista and of course Windows 2008.

Auto-update your Release Candidate build!

One of the cool new features we put into the Release Candidate is the ability of Web PI to upgrade itself. Try it today – if you installed the Web PI RC release in November or December, simply launch the tool again and you will see a prompt indicating that a new release is available. Say “yes” and Web PI will automatically download and install the final release version, and launch it for you!

Install clean

Been waiting for the final product? Wait no longer… if you haven’t tried Web PI yet, today is your lucky day…simply visit http://www.microsoft.com/web/channel/products/WebPlatformInstaller.aspx and click the “Install Now” button. It will download and install Web PI in one click and away you go. Even if you think you already have IIS and ASP.NET installed, **get this tool** I can almost guarantee you there will be new features available for IIS or ASP.NET that you haven’t seen before..and if there aren’t today, there will be soon.

Get Ready for MIX…

If you think Web PI v1.0 is cool….just wait for MIX. ;)

Now Online: Comprehensive IIS7 Technical Reference

bills — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 06:33:50 GMT

If you’ve ever tried to find information on how to install a particular IIS7 feature, or how to configure it using the IIS Manager tool, AppCmd.exe, the new Microsoft.Web.Administration interface or WMI provider, this post is for you.

Every IIS7 feature is now comprehensively documented on http://www.iis.net/ConfigReference/

This IIS7 Technical Reference provides a list of all the built-in IIS7 features, alphabetized for quick access. If you know the configuration name you are interested in, just type it into the URL…for example if you’re looking for information on the system.webServer <caching> setting, type: http://www.iis.net/ConfigReference/system.webServer/caching and whoila, you now have a complete set of reference material on the subject. Literally hundreds of pages of documentation are now freely available at http://www.iis.net/ConfigReference/ and super easy to access.

Each topic has a quick summary of what the feature is, how to install the feature as well as a quick “how-to” article (with pictures) on locating and using the feature inside IIS Manager. Each feature is carefully documented with comprehensive information on the configuration section behind each feature including information on each attribute, it’s type and default value as well as sample configuration. And perhaps best of all, every topic also has sample code for how to use the feature from AppCmd.exe, C#, VB.NET, JavaScript and VBScript! No more scavenging the forums or live search for sample code!

This reference guide could not have happened without a lot of hard work by many, especially Robert McMurray and Pete Harris (the mysterious man behind the iis.net site). Many thanks to them, we hope you enjoy this new section on our community site!

Start-up your Web business with Microsoft BizSpark

bills — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 21:07:18 GMT

Starting up a Web business, especially in this economy, isn’t easy. Microsoft wants to make it easier. A few weeks ago we announced Microsoft BizSpark, a new program specifically for Web start-ups which makes it very easy to get access to the latest versions of Windows, SQL, Visual Studio – with full Microsoft support – very easy and absolutely free to get started!

What do I get with BizSpark?

Software

All the software included in the Visual Studio Team System Team Suite (VSTS) with MSDN Premium subscription Expression Studio (Version 2), plus VSTS Team Foundation Server Standard Edition - for the entire development team
Production license use rights, to deploy, host and support Startup’s "software as a service" applications for delivery over the Internet, using the following products: Windows Server (all versions), SQL Server (all versions), BizTalk Server, and Office SharePoint Server for hosting; and Systems Center for managing hosting server operations.

Support

Guidance, resources and mentoring provided by Network Partners, active members of the global software ecosystem who are qualified to provide support and advice to Startups
Access to MSDN Premium: managed newsgroups, online library, online concierge, etc.
Two technical support Incidents per Startup

Visibility

Each BizSpark Startup will have the opportunity to profile their company in the BizSparkDB, an online Startup directory, hosted on the Microsoft Startup Zone web site. Startups will get exposure to potential investors, partners and customers around the world.
Opportunity to be highlighted on the BizSparkDB as a featured company and be promoted as BizSpark Company of the Week on the Microsoft Startup Zone website.

How to qualify?

If you meet these three simple criteria, you can sign-up today:

Actively engaged in development of a software-based product or service that will form a core piece of its current or intended business^[1],
Privately held, and in business for less than 3 years^[2], and
Less than US $1 million in annual revenue^[3].

What happens after three years of participation in BizSpark?

In addition to responsibility for the USD$100 program offering fee, Startups can continue to use the development tools they previously obtained through the program. If Startups wish to continue to receive updates to development tools, Startups can renew their MSDN subscription at usual rates and terms. To continue to use the production licenses, Startups may choose to take advantage of a licensing program like Microsoft’s Services Provider License Agreement program (or other Microsoft licensing programs that may be available at the time), but are in no way obligated to do so.

How do I get a sponsor?

In order to protect the program from abuse, Microsoft has put in place a sponsorship requirement. Finding sponsorship couldn’t be easier, the current list of sponsors is included in the sign-up process. If you don’t already belong to one of the existing sponsorship organizations, I can sponsor you! Just contact me through the ‘contact me’ link and I’ll be happy to help you.

How easy is it to sign-up?

It is really easy, I did it in less than 5 minutes. Here are the steps:

1) Go to http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/ and click “Join BizSpark now!”

2) Sign in with your Live ID or create a new Live ID

3) Click the “I Accept” check boxes, and enter your enrollment code (If you don’t already have a sponsor, contact me and I’ll help you get started!)

4) Provide us some basic information about your start-up

5) Identify your primary contact

6) You’re done!!! Now you can manage your BizSpark account from here. Note your BizSpark Subscription ID (blanked out in red). One of the things you’ll want to do next is activate your MSDN subscription using this ID. You’ll need to do this in order to start downloading the software.

7) To activate your MSDN subscription, visit https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/add/default.aspx and enter your name, email and the BizSpark subscription ID from the previous page, click the “I acknowledge and accept” checkbox and submit ‘OK’. (Note, it may take 4-6 hours for your MSDN subscription to become available after signing up for your BizSpark account. If MSDN doesn’t find your subscription, check back later.

8) Once you’re up and running you may want to find a Windows hoster who can work with you and your production use licenses to offer your low-cost, discounted hosting services. Through the BizSpark Start-up page you can click the “Manage Hoster Relationship” and find hosters in your country which are part of the program.

Have questions? Leave me a comment. You may also want to check out the BizSpark FAQ: http://www.microsoftstartupzone.com/BizSpark/Pages/FAQ.aspx

Microsoft Web Platform Installer Release Candidate – Now works with XP and Windows 2003!

bills — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:32:00 GMT

I’m excited to announce the availability of the Release Candidate version of the Microsoft Web Platform Installer (Web PI). **Update 1/20/2009 - the final v1.0 release is now available!**

Web PI is a free tool that makes it simple to download and install the latest components of the Microsoft Web Platform, including IIS, ASP.NET, Visual Web Developer Express and SQL Server, along with a lot of cool IIS extensions like URL rewrite and ASP.NET MVC.

Web PI offers a simple experience for downloading and installing the entire stack through a single installer to help you obtain the software you need to build and run a complete Web solution on the Microsoft Web platform, whether you are using Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, or Windows Server 2008.

Run Web PI to get started, and then run it again anytime to check for new extensions to the platform. Every time Web PI is run it checks online to ensure the most current versions and new additions to the Microsoft Web Platform are downloaded. Give Web PI a try today!

ASP.NET supported on Server Core - Windows Server 2008 R2

bills — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:18:11 GMT

In case you haven’t already heard the news, ASP.NET will now be enabled on Windows Server Core starting with Windows Server 2008 R2.

If you're not familiar with Server Core, it is a low footprint Server installation option that lays down just the minimal footprint to boot up the server, it doesn't even install the Shell! This has several key benefits. First, it means server core uses less disk and memory footprint. In our testing, we see a little over 1GB disk footprint and the server runs well starting with just 512MB ram! Of course, fewer features also means a lower attack surface and less frequent patching, as well as fewer things to manage.

When I announced IIS7 on Server Core supported last year, it came with a big caveat: no ASP.NET support, since the .NET framework itself was not available on Server Core. Fortunately the .NET framework and Windows teams have done the work needed to make that possible. Look for a beta coming soon…

Why IIS7? Top 12 cool features…

bills — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 04:13:45 GMT

Every time I talk with customers in meetings or at conferences I’m struck by how many cool amazing new capabilities IIS7 has. I can go on for literally hours talking about the new features and benefits, and showing demos. And with each new IIS7 Extension, the list of new features just gets bigger and bigger. A few months ago I realized we didn’t have the top list of features written up anywhere, and so we started the process of distilling down the list to the top 10. We almost made it! We ended up with the top 12 reasons you should get IIS7 today. Check them out here:

http://www.iis.net/getstarted

Over the next few weeks we’ll be adding a cool demo for each of the reasons to show the features in action. Be sure to check back soon!

IIS7 Request Routing and Load Balancer Release Candidate Available for Download

bills — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 03:38:03 GMT

I’m excited to announce that IIS has released a Release Candidate of the new IIS7 Application Request Routing (ARR) extension! ARR enables Web server administrators to easily scale-out Web applications and improve reliability through HTTP-level, rule-based routing and load balancing. Read more about the cool new features in this new release and check out the updated documentation.

Download the RC release:

For those who are new to IIS7’s ARR module, here are the benefits it provides:

Balance loads more efficiently across servers to maximize resource utilization

By taking advantage of Application Request Routing, administrators have the ability to create powerful routing rules based on URL, HTTP headers and server variables to determine the most appropriate Web application server for each request. ARR makes request routing decisions at the application level, and can be used in conjunction with hardware load balancers as an added layer of control over HTTP requests. For example, using the Application Request Router, administrators are able to route all *.aspx requests to a dynamic group of dedicated Web application servers, which can scale up and down based on traffic demands, while requests for video content, images, javascript and other static content can be served from the ARR machine, or a separate group of servers.

Increase Security and Scalability of Application Servers

Administrators can use IIS7 and the Application Request Routing feature on a reduced-footprint Windows Server core machine(s) to handle incoming requests, and then place traditional Web Application Servers on a middle tier of machines, which can protected behind additional firewalls and not exposed directly to the internet. This protects feature-rich Web application servers from being directly exposed to internet hacking attempts, and enables to scale-out cpu-intensive Web application servers independently.

Manage and monitor multiple server farms more easily through IIS Manager

ARR lets administrators create, manage, and apply load balancing rules to server farms in IIS 7.0 Manager. Administrators can then easily add or remove servers from a server farm to match demand without impacting application availability. ARR also includes live traffic and URL test monitoring capabilities to determine the health of individual servers and configuration settings, while allowing administrators to view aggregated runtime statistics in IIS 7.0 Manager.

Optimize and scale server capacity through client and host name affinity

Administrators can use ARR to route all requests from a specific client to a specific Web application server in a server farm by creating an affinity between the client and server. ARR includes the ability to differentiate clients behind Network Address Traversal (NAT) firewalls and hardware load-balancers, so each client is treated independently. Host name affinity lets hosting providers optimize resources per server and offer scaled solutions by routing requests to servers based on host name.

Features

HTTP based routing decisions built using rules that examine HTTP request information
Sophisticated load balancing algorithms to determine appropriate servers to service the HTTP requests
Health monitoring for live traffic and specific URLs to determine the health of servers with a set of configuration parameters provided to calibrate baseline server health
Client affinity to direct all requests from a client to a specific server by using cookies.
Host name affinity to streamline administration for Web servers and to create additional business opportunities.
Management of multiple server farms to enable pilot management and A/B testing scenarios.
Management and monitoring of all configuration settings and aggregated runtime statistics through IIS Manager interface.
Support for Failed Request Tracing Rules

Find New IIS7 Extensions at http://www.iis.net/extensions/

bills — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:55:00 GMT

I’m happy to announce that IIS7 Extensions have found their home at http://www.iis.net/extensions

Every since IIS7 shipped 9 months ago, the IIS team has been cranking away adding new features to the platform. Last time I blogged about how we do this, I realized we didn’t have a single place to learn about all of them, so I kicked off an effort within the team to create this. Now that the pages are up, it is amazing to see how many new capabilities are already available on top of IIS7…which all by itself had more new features than any other IIS release in the history of the product. It is a testament to not only the ingenuity and hard work of the IIS team, but a real validation that IIS7 is not just a Web server, it is a server platform. All of these new features are built on top of public extensibility points that any developer can use, and provide a seamless runtime, configuration and administration experience that looks and feels like they were built into the product to begin with! Here they are:

Landing page: http://www.iis.net/extensions

http://www.iis.net/AdministrationPack

http://www.iis.net/ApplicationRequestRouting

http://www.iis.net/BitRateThrottling

http://www.iis.net/DatabaseManager

http://www.iis.net/FTP

http://www.iis.net/IISManager

http://www.iis.net/PowerShell

http://www.iis.net/SmoothStreaming

http://www.iis.net/URLRewrite

http://www.iis.net/UrlScan

http://www.iis.net/WebDeploymentTool

http://www.iis.net/WebPlaylists

http://www.iis.net/WebDAV

Check out the more than a dozen new features available today! Over the next few weeks we’ll be adding video demos of each feature and more new content. Stay tuned for many cool new features to come!