Windows Server 2008/IIS7

Intermedia now offers Windows Server 2008 / IIS 7.0 on all Windows Web Hosting Plans.

Microsoft Internet Information Services 7.0 (IIS 7.0) breaks new ground in extensibility and ease of management and deployment. The new management tools provide a powerful, integrated way to manage both IIS and ASP.NET, using a rich graphical user interface or remotely callable APIs. The new extensibility architecture provides the ability to seamlessly integrate the new administration tools. An XML-based configuration system gives administrators greater flexibility for easier deployment of sites and applications. This release is not a set of incremental improvements. IIS7 is a dramatic leap forward that will benefit server administrators, developers, and Web site owners.

IIS 7.0 is designed to enable you to customize a server by adding or removing modules to meet your specific needs. Modules are individual features that the server uses to process requests. For example, IIS uses authentication modules to authenticate client credentials, and cache modules to manage cache activity. Windows Server 2008 has all the IIS features you need to support hosting of Web content in production environments.

What’s New in IIS 7.0

View a screenshot of IIS 7.0 Manager »

Integrated .NET runtime and core Web server

IIS 7.0 integrates the ASP.NET runtime with the core web server, providing a unified request processing pipeline that is exposed to both native and managed components known as modules. This integration offers many benefits including:

• Allowing services provided by both native and managed modules to apply to all requests, regardless of handler. For example, managed Forms Authentication can be used for all content, including ASP pages, CGIs, and static files.
• Empowering ASP.NET components to provide functionality that was previously unavailable to them due to their placement in the server pipeline. For example, a managed module providing request rewriting functionality can rewrite the request prior to any server processing, including authentication.
• A single place to implement, configure, monitor and support server features such as single module and handler mapping configuration, single custom errors configuration, single url authorization configuration.

Graphical Management Console – IIS Manager

The new GUI administration tool in IIS 7.0 offers a new, more efficient tool for managing the Web server. It provides support for both IIS and ASP.NET configuration settings, membership users, and role data, as well as runtime diagnostic information. The new UI also enables those who host or administer Web sites to delegate administrative control to developers or content owners, thus reducing cost of ownership and the administrative burden for the IT Professional. It supports connecting to remote servers over HTTP (through firewalls), and works in both dedicated and shared hosting environments.

• Remotely manage IIS 7.0 from Windows Vista, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
• Connect directly to a server, an individual site, or an application.
• View your remote site/application content directly from within the tool.
• Installs even when you don’t have IIS 7.0 on the local machine.
• Allows multiple simultaneous connections to servers, sites and applications.

Ease of Use

IIS 7.0 makes extending Web server functionality easier. A new integrated pipeline lets developers create custom modules that can be plugged into the IIS7’s new request-processing pipeline. Developers can write native modules with C++ or managed modules in a .NET language such as C# or Visual Basic.Net. The advanced features of the .NET Framework, combined with deep integration into the IIS 7.0 pipeline, lets developers create custom modules quickly and easily. Any application can leverage the .NET Role and Membership providers, which are integrated in the new IIS 7.0 pipeline. Existing ISAPI applications built for IIS6 will also run without modification in IIS 7.0’s Classic mode.

Security

IIS 7.0 builds on the security and reliability established by IIS 6.0.The modular design lets you reduce the attack surface of your server by uninstalling the modules that you do not need for your application. You can also write your own modules to support your custom security requirements. New automatic application isolation adds a layer of protection to keep applications safe from each other. IIS 7.0’s ability to set up rules to control access to URLs and filter requests lets administrators manage access to sites, folders, and files without requiring ACLs. And admin delegation lets you assign limited administrative rights to users for specific sites instead of granting server-wide admin rights.