In the spring of 2003, as Microsoft was touting Windows Server 2003, a group from Port80 Software trekked up to Microsoft WHQ in Redmond, WA and had a meeting with the IIS team. We had all sorts of ideas for where they should take the Internet Information Services Web server, and with Port80 being new on the scene with its then four products for IIS, we wanted to know where Microsoft planned to go with IIS in the future. We were talking Apache and its culture of modules to extend Web functionality that dominated and gave competitive advantage to the open source Web server. Microsoft’s IIS folks understood this (which surprised us), and they said that IIS 7 would be worth the wait...
Fast forward to February 27, 2008, and the hottest new feature in the (formerly Longhorn) now shipping Windows Server 2008 is... IIS 7! Unless it is the focus of a news or blog piece, IIS 7 is usually the last feature brought up in discussions of Server 2008, but at least during this launch, IIS is a major selling point for the OS for once -- and rightfully so.
Here is why Port80 Software is excited about IIS 7, Microsoft’s lucky number Web server:
1. IIS 7 is modular by design.
As one early adopter from an Australian bank put it, “Server 2008 and IIS7 represents one of the more exciting developments in hosting because the ability to integrate third-party modules into IIS7.” Though you could always build out new Web server features with ISAPI on IIS 4/5/6 on Windows NT/2000/2003, the interface was purported to have issues. Good ISAPI filters are possible if you know what you are doing and have a lot of practice, but Port80’s tech teams are excited to code new IIS 7 modules with the same API that Microsoft’s team used to build IIS 7 itself. A better foundation will make for better enhancements to the Web server. Of course, this modularity is also a security feature, as you have the option to only deploy the pieces of Web server functionality that you need (however, do note that there are some reasons that a few deeper aspects of IIS will live no matter what modules are deployed, but on the sly).
2. IIS 7 has a new GUI.
Microsoft has always had a good track record with UI design, but this advantage was never pressed in their Web server software. Though IIS 6 did offer some UI changes, it is nothing like IIS 7, with different panes for tasks and the ability to marshall more data and Web server control at once. Besides, what Web admin isn’t sick of the old UI? Everyone likes a new dashboard:
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3. IIS 7 also has no GUI.Now it is possible to run IIS 7 with no UI as a
Server Core installation (you can’t do this just yet with ASP.NET, but look for an update there soon). Less resource intensive as the Server Core option simply uses less disk space (only a gigabyte to run it all), it boots faster (some claims of speed reduction by two thirds), and finally less moving parts again reduces the potential attack service. When you combine this Windows 2008 GUI-less environment with the
Power Shell interface, you begin to seriously erode the perceived Apache advantage of command line automation.
4. IIS 7 performs well.Check out these comments:
“We also tested IIS 7 via Web get/posts using inclining concurrency of the get/posts (using static pages), and found that there was no additional performance advantage of Windows 2003 over 2008 server editions until concurrency (number of users getting and posting) was raised significantly, where Windows 2008 and IIS 7 became very fast compared with Windows 2003 and IIS 6,”
Network World found. Lot’s of POSTs in Web 2.0, good for IIS 7…
“Internet hosting company
Rackspace has found that hardware requirements have decreased 16% to 35% per cluster by using IIS 7.0,”
per Information Week. The focus on doing more with less pays off here…
"The memory handling is extremely improved over 2003 and we'll be able to run more websites per server," said that same early adopter at
that Aussie bank we mentioned earlier.
More features and IIS 7 still delivers more requests on less hardware. What’s not to like?
5. IIS 7 leverages a better TCP/IP stack for more connections, especially on 64 Bit.We all know 64 bit is going to be the standard in high performance Web server OSes, but it is nice to see the whole thing coming together in Windows 2008. Here is
what ServerWatch had to say:
“Finally, although there has long been a 64-bit version of Server 2003, it's only with the introduction of Server 2008 that companies will be moving to 64-bit hardware in significant numbers as they refresh their server rooms. Because of the way TCP/IP connection states are stored and the fact that 32-bit systems can address only 4 gigabytes of RAM, 32-bit systems have in effect been limited to around 20,000 to 30,000 connections per machine. Since 64-bit machines running Server 2008 Enterprise Edition can address 2 terabytes of RAM, IIS 7 running on these machines has the potential to maintain many, many more TCP/IP connections than it (or any other Web server) would on 32-bit boxes.”
As we are currently working at Port80 Software on our own x86-64 Bit code, we were excited to see that IIS 7 shines in this context.
6. Finally, you can use the Web-based UI in IIS 7 for easier administration.No, we will have six points in this IIS 7 review, but it is true that you can finally safely administrate IIS over the Web without terminal services, RDP or a control panel. Turn on the built-in functionality, and administer IIS 7 over the Web -- once you have locked that box down, of course!
7. Microsoft is opening up officially, Web app-wise, with IIS 7."Today, Windows [or IIS] is becoming the most popular platform on the planet for running PHP applications, which has a certain irony to it,"
Steve Ballmer said recently.
FastCGI, a module that ships with IIS 7, makes it super easy to host application frameworks such as PHP, Ruby on Rails and Perl, and then applications built on those Web app platforms can run on IIS 7. No longer should you tie the app development environment to one type of Web server: develop where and in what you like and then deploy on *NIX or Windows, Apache or IIS. With all of these new features, Apache admins should at least take a fresh look at IIS 7.
We at Port80 Software would like to congratulate the Microsoft IIS team on a great job of not only building a stellar new Web server, but in their commitment to the IIS community with the very active site
http://www.iis.net, which just got a new face lift. It is a good week for Web serving, and we look forward to seeing what customers have to say on Windows 2008 and IIS 7 in the real world.
So after all this, you might wonder what are Port80’s IIS 7 plans? Well, we are certainly working hard on it. However, truth be told, what customers so far are really clamoring for right now is x86-64 bit support for our current world renown products on Windows Server 2003. To meet this demand,
httpZip will be the first tool to support 64 bit on IIS 6 shortly, to be followed quickly by most of the Port80 product line for IIS. IIS 7 products and .NET platform products of course are also in the works. With all this change in the air, we invite customers to
join our new beta program to be the first to get your hands on IIS7 and 64 bit code from Port80. Beyond that, we hope that you will let us know what you would like to see in the world of Windows Web serving. What is keeping you up at night concerning IIS and HTTP?
Cheers,
Port80 Software