http://www.microsoft.com/InfoServ/iisrevguide.htm (PC Press Internet CD, 03/1996)
Microsoft Internet Information Server Overview for Evaluators
Welcome to the Microsoft® Internet Information Server Reviewer's Guide. This guide describes key capabilities and features of IIS. The Internet Information Server is the only Web server tightly integrated with Windows NT Server and designed to deliver a wide range of Internet and Intranet server capabilities. It is a powerful Web server and also easy to install and manage. By optimizing around the Windows NT Server platform, the Microsoft Internet Information Server delivers high performance, excellent security, and ease of management, It serves as the best platform for both integrating with existing solutions and delivering a new generation of Web applications.
CONTENTS
Microsoft's strategy for Internet server products is to build on the Windows NT™ Server platform and BackOffice™ suite of server applications to respond directly to these requirements.
The Microsoft Internet Information Server
The Microsoft Internet Information Server delivers
an easily installed and managed, high speed, secure information
publishing solution while also serving as a platform for developers
and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). The primary capabilities
of the Microsoft Internet Information Server include:
While other products provide some subset of these features, only the Microsoft Internet Information Server offers this customer-defined combination. In addition, the Internet Information Server delivers a unique set of advantages:
The Easiest to Set Up and Manage
Before the Internet became a widespread phenomenon,
the difficulty of installing traditional UNIX Web servers was
not a limiting factor. Expert UNIX administrators were available
to manage every server in operation. Administration was less of
a concern because the person responsible usually sat at the machine.
Using browsers for administration was not a secure model and the
performance and administration tools were not integrated with
the operating system, thereby causing duplicate work.
Today, server installations are exploding, with IDC
forecasting 165,000 new servers for the US
alone in 1996. Implementation must be simple and integrated, or
the extra work caused by UNIX will severely constrain the number
of people and sites able to benefit from this new communication
platform.
The Microsoft Internet Information Server addresses
these fundamental customer concerns by delivering the right combination
of facilities. They include:
The Most Powerful Web Server
The Internet Information Server is the fastest Windows
NT Web server available. IIS is also faster than more expensive
Unix solutions. In the past, Web servers did not focus on performance.
This might have been acceptable because Web servers were running
on dedicated servers and low-speed links were prevalent. Today,
the importance of Web server performance is exploding for several
reasons, including:
Overall, the Microsoft Internet Information server
optimizes valuable system resources including CPU and memory thus
delivering better levels of system performance as other products.
IIS delivers new levels of Web server performance by being tightly
integrated with the Windows NT Server operating system.
When the primary purpose of the Internet was focused
on academic uses and research, concerns about security were minimal.
Today, users of the Internet consider it an extension of the own
local and wide area networks. Customers want to make purchases,
passing personal credit information to vendors in the process.
And companies are seeking to make product information available
to specific partners-but not to competitors. Hence, a key concern
of Internet site managers (or "WebMasters") is the security
of their site. To be effective, a secure Internet server must:
To ensure the optimal level of security, the Microsoft
Internet Information Server integrates tightly with the native
security features of Windows NT Server. The Internet Information
Server uses the Windows NT User Accounts Database to manage
individual user and group access to the server. It also uses the
Windows NT Access Control Lists to ensure that, even though
access to the server has been granted, only the intended files
are actually available for access by the proper groups or individuals.
Internet Information Server also includes the Secure Sockets Layer
encrypted communication standard for private communication between
the client and the server.
When the Internet served as a platform for experimentation
and trial, high levels of reliability were not required. Today,
customers installing Web servers are doing so to run important
aspects of their business. Whether the goal of a Web site is the
publication of information, the delivery of technical support,
or the actual commercial sale of goods and services, servers are
becoming mission critical platforms. Whether internal or external,
if a server fails, the business suffers. As a result, high availability
is critical.
Internet Information Server provides this reliable
platform by relying on Windows NT Server to provide:
Integration and the New Generation of Web Applications
Because of its easy navigational capabilities, the
Web was the first broadly interesting Internet application. In
the past, offering a Web server that focused singularly on shuffling
HTML documents over the Internet for users to browse was sufficient.
Today, customers want a much wider range of capabilities. They
need, for example, to publish their databases directly onto the
Internet. Increasingly customers want to use the Web as the basis
for delivering access to Microsoft BackOffice and other thousands
of Win32® applications that are already available.
The Internet Information Server offers a unique combination
of development capabilities. In fact, many aspects of this open
interface were designed as part of Microsoft's ongoing open design
process. Hundreds of Independent Software Vendors and Internet
Service Providers (ISPs) have visited Microsoft to guide us on
the development of our server programmability. The result is a
uniquely rich and high-performance set of capabilities and a community
of developers that are porting outstanding application solutions
to the Internet Information Server.
It is possible to extend the capabilities of an Internet
Information Server using a variety of methods.
To successfully setup this test drive of Microsoft Internet Information Server, some level of familiarity with the following will be helpful:
All Windows NT Servers need to be installed with Windows NT Server 3.51 Service Pack 3. For our customers convenience we include the Service Pack on our CD ROM. See Appendix A in the downloadable document for installation instructions.