Professional Microsoft IIS 8

Key Characteristics

IIS 8.0 was built with the following characteristics in mind:

• Simple to use—As previously mentioned, IIS 8.0 does not use the same metabase scheme as older versions of IIS, but rather uses a series of plaintext XML files for configuration. With IIS 8.0, the state is in the files, thus a change to the files results in an immediate change to the server, site, or application configuration.
• Securely built—The default configuration is set to allow only the system administrator to configure the server, sites, and applications. By using Feature Delegation, system administrators can securely make site and application administration available to down-level administrators without giving more permissions on the server than necessary. By default, the system does not store sensitive information like passwords. However, if there is a need to store sensitive information, it is encrypted on the hard disk. In addition to these security features, applications can be isolated to prevent other applications from sharing or reading the settings.
• Extensible—Just as the IIS Manager is extensible, so is the IIS configuration. This is made easy because the schema of IIS is contained in XML files. To extend the schema, just place an XML file in the schemas folder. You'll see below how the settings are arranged in “sections” within the configuration files.
• Low TCO—By changing to the XML file-based schema, IIS 8.0 is easier to deploy and manage. The file-based schema allows for web settings ...