Windows Server 2008 R2 includes many enhancements that make this release the most robust Windows Server Web application platform yet. It offers an updated Web server role, Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.5, and greater support for .NET on Server Core. Design goals for IIS 7.5 concentrated on improvements that enable Web administrators to more easily deploy and manage Web applications, and that increase both reliability and scalability. Additionally, IIS 7.5 has streamlined management capabilities and provides more ways than ever to customize your Web serving environment.
The following improvements to IIS and the Windows Web platform are included in Windows Server 2008 R2:
- Reduced Effort to Administer and Support Web-Based Applications
- Reduced Support and Troubleshooting Effort
- Improved File-Transfer Services
- Ability to Extend Functionality and Features
- Improved .NET Support
- Improved Application Pool Security
- IIS.NET Community Portal
Tags: IIS 7.5, New IIS
Microsoft has created a new FTP service that has been completely rewritten for Windows Server 2008. This new FTP service incorporates many new features that enable web authors to publish content better than before, and offers web administrators more security and deployment options.
- Integration with IIS 7: IIS 7 has a brand-new administration interface and configuration store, and the new FTP service is tightly integrated with this new design. The old IIS 6.0 metabase is gone, and a new configuration store that is based on the .NET XML-based *.config format has taken its place. In addition, IIS 7 has a new administration tool, and the new FTP server plugs seamlessly into that paradigm.
- Support for new Internet standards: One of the most significant features in the new FTP server is support for FTP over SSL. The new FTP server also supports other Internet improvements such as UTF8 and IPv6.
- Shared hosting improvements: By fully integrating into IIS 7, the new FTP server makes it possible to host FTP and Web content from the same site by simply adding an FTP binding to an existing Web site. In addition, the FTP server now has virtual host name support, making it possible to host multiple FTP sites on the same IP address. The new FTP server also has improved user isolation, now making it possible to isolate users through per-user virtual directories.
- Custom authentication providers: The new FTP server supports authentication using non-Windows accounts for IIS Managers and .NET Membership.
- Improved logging support: FTP logging has been enhanced to include all FTP-related traffic, unique tracking for FTP sessions, FTP sub-statuses, additional detail fields in FTP logs, and much more.
- New supportability features: IIS 7 has a new option to display detailed error messages for local users, and the FTP server supports this by providing detailed error responses when logging on locally to an FTP server. The FTP server also logs detailed information using Event Tracing for Windows (ETW), which provides additional detailed information for troubleshooting.
- Extensible feature set: FTP supports extensibility that allows you to extend the built-in functionality that ships with the FTP service. More specifically, there is support for creating your own authentication and authorization providers. You can also create providers for custom FTP logging and for determining the home directory information for your FTP users.
Seekdotnet have applied FTP 7 in our dotnetpanel with IIS 7 to replace FTP 6.
Microsoft have released the new .NET AJAX framework 3.0, this release includes three important new controls:
The HTMLEditor control allows you to easily create and edit HTML content. You can edit in design mode, as a rich text editor, or in source view to edit the HTML markup directly.
The ComboBox control provides a DropDownList of items, combined with TextBox. Different modes determine the interplay between the text entry and the list of items.
The ColorPicker Control Extender can be attached to any ASP.NET TextBox control. It provides client-side color-picking functionality with UI in a popup control.
Seekdotnet will apply AJAX framework 3.0 in our server soon. The Microsoft Ajax content delivery network (CDN) enables you to easily add ASP.NET Ajax Library and jQuery scripts to your Web applications. You can start using the ASP.NET Ajax Library or jQuery simply by adding a <script> tag to your page that point to Ajax.microsoft.com.
Tags: AJAX Control Toolkit 3.0, AJAX hosting
