Professional Microsoft IIS 8

Configuring Compression

Prior to IIS 7.0, compression seemed to be more of an afterthought than an integral part of the server. Now compression is easily managed through the main IIS management tools. Compression can provide significant bandwidth savings while delivering content, as well as faster response times for clients (with a possible trade-off of increased memory or CPU usage on the server to compress content), and is thus an important scalability technique.

By default, the Static Compression module is installed when IIS 8.0 is installed. The Dynamic Compression module can be installed during setup or at any point afterward. IIS 8.0 also allows compression to be set at all levels, from server down to virtual directory. The server level allows the most configuration options; all other levels allow only the ability to enable or disable compression.

Enabling both static and dynamic compression is highly recommended. One item to keep in mind is that compression causes the server to work harder and use more processing power. If you choose to enable dynamic compression, you should monitor your server performance to ensure that it is responding within the performance window that your organization has set.

Configuring Compression with IIS Manager

In IIS 6.0, it wasn't possible to configure compression through IIS Manager. With IIS 8.0, however, you can enable compression simply by checking boxes in the Compression section of IIS Manager. Compression settings can be configured at ...