Datasheet

Figure 1-6

IIS 7 and ASP.NET Integrated

Configuration Systems

In IIS 6.0, two separate configuration systems govern the IIS and ASP.NET pipelines. These configura-

tion systems store their configuration settings in two different storage media, with two different

schemas. IIS configuration settings are stored in the IIS 6.0 metabase, whereas ASP.NET configuration

settings are stored in ASP.NET configuration files. Such separation of configuration systems makes the

task of administering the Web server and its sites and applications much more complex and trouble-

some. For one thing, there’s no way to delegate site- and application-specific IIS configuration settings to

site and application administrators without compromising the integrity and security of the Web server,

because all IIS configuration settings are centralized. This also takes away from the ASP.NET developers

the opportunity to tailor the IIS configuration settings toward their own applications. Having two sepa-

rate configuration systems for IIS and ASP.NET configuration settings also means that you have to learn

two separate APIs to programmatically access and edit these configuration settings.

IIS 7 has changed all that. Having a single integrated pipeline made it possible for the IIS 7 team to intro-

duce a single integrated configuration system for both IIS and ASP.NET settings. Because this integrated

configuration system is an extension of the ASP.NET configuration system, the existing ASP.NET config-

uration files can easily merge into the new integrated configuration system with a little or no changes.

Request

Response

Integrated Request Processing Pipeline

Preprocessing Modules

Handler Mapper

Postprocessing Modules

Authentication Module

Authorization Module

…

PageHandlerFactory

StaticFile

Compression Module

Logging Module

Chapter 1: IIS 7 and ASP.NET Integrated Architecture

52539c01.qxd:WroxPro 9/17/07 6:51 PM Page 10