Professional Microsoft IIS 8

IIS 6.0

IIS 6.0 shipped with Windows Server 2003 editions and Windows XP Professional 64-Bit Edition, which was built on the Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 code base. IIS 6.0 was identical among operating system versions, but there were restrictions or expansions depending on the version of Server 2003 under which IIS was running. For example, Server 2003 Web Edition would only run IIS and a few ancillary services; it could not be used to run Microsoft SQL Server. On the other end of the spectrum, only the Enterprise and Data Center versions of Server 2003 included clustering technology.

Operating system changes also expanded the capabilities of IIS as an application server. Native XML Web Services appeared in Server 2003. Process-independent session states made web farms easier to configure and manage, allowing session states to be stored outside of the application for redundancy and failover. Web farms also became easier with Server 2003's improved Network load-balancing features, such as the NLB Manager, which provided a single management point for NLB functions.

Secure by Default

Windows Server 2003 and IIS 6.0 shipped in a secure state, with IIS no longer installed by default. Even when IIS was installed, the default installation would serve only static HTML pages; all dynamic content was locked down. Managed through web service extensions, applications such as ASP and ASP.NET had to be specifically enabled, minimizing default security holes with unknown services open ...