Internet Information Services 7.5 for Windows Server^® 2008: Hands-On

IIS 7.5: A Powerful Web Application Platform

• Integration with ASP.NET framework
• Revealing the fully extensible modular architecture
• Benefiting from enhanced performance and reliability

Preparing for IIS 7.5 Installation

Overview of Web architecture

• Communicating between browsers and servers
• Building blocks of Internet technologies

Installing the Web server

• Verifying minimum requirements
• Establishing installation best practices
• Mirroring the production environment for developers

Configuring the Extensible Modules

Analysing the default installation

• Identifying standard modules
• Modifying initial configuration settings
• Reducing the attack surface

Extending functionality with additional modules

• Determining application requirements
• Enabling selected modules for application support
• Adding new features with custom modules

Building a Reliable Web Site

Automatic sandboxing with application pools

• Managing application pools
• Isolating applications for improved stability and performance

Maintaining application availability

• Configuring rapid fail detection
• Monitoring process recycling and program health
• Detecting errors with Failed Request Event Tracing

Streamlining Administrative Tasks

Configuring application settings

• Automating tasks with scripting and AppCmd
• Replicating your system configuration
• Xcopy deployment of site settings and content
• Gaining more control with Administration tools

Delegating administrative responsibilities

• Assigning feature control to site owners
• Empowering the developer to manage the virtual server
• Tracking configuration changes with Configuration Tracing

Developing Applications with IIS 7.5

Maximising ASP.NET integration

• Analysing integrated and classic pipeline modes
• Building ASP.NET Web pages
• Configuring support for classic ASP

Supporting alternative technologies

• Enabling popular application frameworks with FastCGI
• Creating a PHP solution

Securing Web Applications

Providing secure user authentication

• Setting up users and groups
• Selecting authentication modules
• Implementing restricted access through the Internet Services Manager (ISM)

Encrypting communication

• Requesting and installing a server certificate
• Enabling SSL/TLS for secure data communications
• Verifying server authenticity with certificates

Expanding Hosting Capabilities

Publishing Web content

• Uploading data with Secure FTP
• Managing file structures with WebDAV
• Indexing and searching content

Creating multiple virtual servers

• Hosting a multitude of sites and subsites
• Protecting and isolating competing sites
• Resolving sites with DNS and host headers

Integrating SharePoint technologies

• Team collaboration and document management capabilities
• Configuring SharePoint to coexist with other Web sites

Deploying a Scalable Web Server

Tuning and optimising performance

• Troubleshooting performance counters
• Analysing Web server log files

Implementing a robust Server Farm

• Configuring Web gardens and farms
• Achieving fault-tolerance and scalability
• Building a Network Load Balancing (NLB) cluster