At the ASP .Net Connections in Orlando last week, I was able to attend a session delivered by Eric Woersching, IIS Product Manager. He delivered a high level overview and demos of IIS 7.0 features. IIS 7.0 is the latest version of Microsoft's web server. It is part of Microsoft's Windows Vista and the Windows server "Longhorn" release. It is available in the Beta 2 Release. On the Vista platform, it is meant for development, but not meant for production use, because it is limited to ten simultaneous requests.

IIS 7.0 contains several interesting features. For example, the metabase file in previous versions has been replaced by a configuration file. This should be an improvement if you have ever tried to export an existing metabase configuration. The core web server has been refactored into 40 dll's which can be independently installed to allow a more granular configuration. These can be of value by reducing the attach surface, reducing the memory footprint, and building custom/specialized servers for a particular use, for example load balancing. IIS 7 core features can be extended, replaced, or modified using both managed code and Win32 API's.

We can still run legacy .Net Framework 1.1  applications in "classic mode" by using additional application pools. We can perform "URL Rewriting" which allows browsing to a target web page based on a particular file extension, such as .jpg.

Managed modules and handlers replace IHTTPModule and ISAPI filters. There also are powerful diagnostic capabilities that will allow us to more easily troubleshoot web sites and applications.

IIS 7.0 starter kits are available today to allow users to start working with IIS 7.0. An excellent source of information is the IIS Community Portal found at www.iis.net.