Microsoft targets Apache IIS7.0 and opens open-source arms

We have been paying attention to IIS7.0. Today, let's take a look at Microsoft's Open Arms targeting Apache IIS7.0. Microsoft has taken a fancy to the advantages of modularity. Eric Deily, Senior Project Manager of Microsoft IIS7.0 team, said they are trying to mimic this feature in IIS 7.0. IIS7.0 is the biggest change from previous versions to native FastCGI to support multiple open source development environments, such as PHP, Python, and Ruby on Rails.

Deily said that adding FastCGI support is a top priority. Deploying PHP and FastCGI in IIS7.0 will be as fast as Apache in Linux. "Our customers make FastCGI take effect on IIS 6.0. They use Visual Studio and php.net for all development work. This is an interesting combination of non-Microsoft technology and Windows ."

The emphasis on open-source environments also stems from the business carried out by host hosting service providers, such as the Wordpress blog system.

Deily pointed out that the IIS7.0 team is actively conducting compatibility tests for this purpose. "The problem now is to choose the right platform for our work. Obviously, IIS7.0 is lower than Apache in getting started ."

At this year's TechED conference, Deily confidently believes that the improved management capability of IIS7.0 will help the migration of the Apache platform. "IIS management is no longer dependent on machines. When I deploy my own servers, I can use a single machine to host the configuration file. The front-end has no peripherals (headless ). There was no configuration repository in the past, and all the important parts were on the [Shared] server ."

The extended performance of IIS7.0 is also catching up with Apache, that is, you can use the native API or the PowerShell script environment provided by Windows Server 2008. Deily: "customers can use the same API as Microsoft to develop extensions. In June 7.0, you can use Microsoft or third-party components to replace the default functions at will ."

Eric Woersching, manager of Microsoft's network platform and tool technology platform, said that IIS7.0's "ecosystem" is becoming increasingly dynamic because of modularity and third-party extensions and user discussion zones provided by www.iis.net. "This is the product of our listening to customers' opinions. I understand that this is related to open source, but it does work ."

He said that an IIS7.0 pre-release version with the above scalability has been delivered with Vista. He also revealed that the SQL Server team is working on a native PHP platform. "With Apache, you must build a solution through different source code. IIS7.0 has only one installation package, and now it is modularized. You can use IIS7.0 to configure PHP. PHP is designed for Apache, which is not our focus, but it is imperative to support PHP ."