IIS
6.0 Architecture and Web Server Consolidation
Host: T.N.C. Venkata Rangan, T.N.C. Venkata Rangan, CEO - Vishwak
Group
January
02, 2004
Kevin_MS: Hello & Happy New Year to All
Kevin_MS: Welcome to this year's very first MSDN India Expert chat
on IIS 6.0 Architecture
Kevin_MS: Our expert host for the day is T.N.C. Venkata Rangan, CEO
- Vishwak Group & MSDN Regional Director
Kevin_MS: Please type your questions in the edit box at the bottom
of the Question Room.
Kevin_MS: Over to you Venkat…
Venkatarangan: Thank you kevin
Venkatarangan: Wish everyone in the group a very happy
and prosperous New Year - 2004
Moderator: (Bhuvan) What good news does IIS 6 get for the ASP.NET
Developer?
Venkatarangan: Let me start with this.
Venkatarangan: IIS 6.0 is all about Reliability + Security
+ Performance
Venkatarangan: whether it is for HTML Pages or ASPX.
Venkatarangan: IIS 6.0 is part of Windows Server 2003
which by default comes up with .NET Framework 1.1 which as you aware
is the next version of ASP.NET 1.0
Venkatarangan: IIS 6.0 also has a new Architecture by
which you now have new HTTP listner called "HTTP.SYS", which is a
kernel level listener
Venkatarangan: this accepts requests from users, 'Q's
it and sends it to worker process. So you can be sure that you don't
miss any incoming requests
Venkatarangan: All these are good news for an ASP.NET
Developer
Moderator: (Bhuvan) So is .NET/ASP.NET truly "native and integrated"
into Windows/IIS?
Venkatarangan: Definitely Yes. With Win2003, you don't
need to install anything to get IIS 6.0 or ASP.NET
Venkatarangan: two things to remember, by default Windows
2003 doesn't install IIS 6.0 (in the web edition alone, it is installed
by default)
Venkatarangan: 2) IIS 6.0 disables ASP, CGI and other
content. You have to enable them. In a way it has IIS Lock Down installed
in it by default
Moderator: (Bhuvan) apart from the "installation bit" what really
makes it "native" keeping in mind security and performance?
Venkatarangan: For Performance - Your new HTTP.SYS Listner
being in Kernel mode makes it the fastest web server in the planet.
Apache or Netscape or even IIS 5.0 can't come close to IIS 6.0
Venkatarangan: For Security - The whole architecture is
redone in IIS 6.0, taking into acocunt the hard lessons learned with
IIS 5.0 and the virus.
Venkatarangan: All worker process now works with lower
privelege.
Venkatarangan: This URL: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/iis/evaluation/overview/benefits.mspx
lists all the benefits of moving to IIS 6.0
Moderator: (Bhuvan) can IIS make use of hardware level "parallelism"
that is available thru Intel's Hyperthreading architecture?
Venkatarangan: I dont' have an official answer on this.
but Intel shd' be shipping drivers for Windows 2003 that will make
it better with Hyperthreading
Venkatarangan: and IIS 6.0 manages processes and threads
better than 5.0, so definitely you are likely to see benefit with
HT
Moderator: (Bhuvan) Security for ASP.NET to a large extent will depend
on the CLR "sandbox" are any changes been made for security at the
CLR level or these are only at the OS / IIS level?
Venkatarangan: You are right. Sandbox is basically from
the CLR part.
Moderator: (Bhuvan) Is there a IIS.CONFIG or somethign on those lines?
Venkatarangan: No
Moderator: (Bhuvan) I checked out http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.microsoft.com
at the bottom of the page look at Linux and IIS6 mentioned as the
web server. is IIS 6 really available on Linux! ?
Venkatarangan: IIS Config is thru' GUI. But now the whole
configuration is stored in a XML file called "Metabase.XML"
Venkatarangan: Bhuvan: That's an interesting question
:-)
Venkatarangan: IIS 6.0 is only available with Windows
2003. What is happening is,
Venkatarangan: Microsoft.com is using an accelerating
services from Akamai for better BW handling and distribtuion of load
throughout the world
Venkatarangan: Akamai have their accelerating servers
in all parts of world, including in India with VSNL.
Venkatarangan: So what is happening is, Akamai is removing
the Windows 2003 from the header and adding there own. They happen
to run with Linux.
Venkatarangan: In fact, if Akamai is using Windows 2003,
they need far less servers than they have now.
Venkatarangan: These are two great Articles that came
in MSDNMag for learning about IIS 6.0
