WEB SERVER (Internet Information Services 6.0)

A new generation of Web applications puts a greater demand on performance and scalability attributes of Web servers. For example, the Web server is expected to increase the speed at which HTTP requests are processed, but still allowing more applications and sites to run on one server. This also means that very few servers are needed to host a site, allowing the existing hardware investments to sustain longer while being able to handle greater capacity. Another important aspect of the Web server is its reliability. IIS 6.0 has been designed from the ground up to allow us to create reliable applications. For example, in IIS 6.0, you can isolate each application or Web site to run in its own process space. By doing this, you can ensure that applications are isolated and problems in one site do not affect the rest of the applications on the same server

Microsoft's Internet Information Services (IIS) is one of the most popular Web servers in use on the Internet and in intranets throughout the world. A Web server is a common point of vulnerability to hackers because—by necessity—it exposes itself to the Web. IIS 6.0 is no longer installed by default on Windows Server 2003 servers (with the exception of the Web Server Edition). When administrators do install IIS, it's initially configured in a high security mode. Security is a priority in this new version. Consequently, administrators must explicitly enable a number of important Web services features which worked automatically in previous versions. This new focus on security means administrators must familiarize themselves with the changes to provide the Web server services needed on their networks.

IIS 6.0 is the next generation of Web server available in the Windows Server 2003 platform. IIS 6.0 provides several enhancements over IIS 5.0 that are mainly intended to increase reliability, manageability, scalability, and security. IIS 6.0 is a key component of the Windows Server 2003 application platform, using which you can develop and deploy high performance ASP.NET Web applications, and XML Web Services. The new features of IIS 6.0 are new scalable HTTP request processing architecture, the ability to store IIS configuration settings in XML file, improved reliability by means of application pools, and so on.