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Exploring Web & Application Services

Why Windows 2000 is a Great Web Server

Posted: Wednesday, March 29, 2000

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Introduction

Whether your business is a tiny startup or a Fortune 100 mainstay, the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Server operating system can help you build the Internet into every part of your organization. From hosting a simple Web site to building a sophisticated e-commerce application, the Web and application services in Windows 2000 provide the foundation you need to take full advantage of the Internet.

Building on the strength of the services in the Microsoft Windows NT® 4.0 operating system, Windows 2000 was designed with the Internet very much in mind. In addition to the fully integrated Internet communications technologies (see Exploring Communications and Networking Services) Windows 2000 also includes fully integrated Internet-enabled application development technologies. From simple things, such as the ability to understand Internet addresses, to more complex capabilities, such as the ability to create software that links a Web browser to a central database, Windows 2000 is uniquely capable of helping your business take advantage of the Internet.

This document provides an overview of the Web and application capabilities provided by Windows 2000. To learn more about the specific features, see Windows 2000 Application Services Features and Windows 2000 Internet Information Services Features. To see the ways you can put Windows 2000 Internet capabilities to work in your business, see Extending Your Business with Advanced Web and Application Services.

Web Services

The heart of the Windows 2000 Web and Application services is the built-in Web server, Internet Information Service (IIS) 5.0. This full-featured server lets you host Web sites that can take advantage of interactive applications. IIS 5.0 supports the latest Internet standards, so your business can take advantage of the full scope of Internet technologies.

IIS 5.0 features increased reliability, scalability, and performance. These improvements stem from advances made throughout the operating system: from the Windows 2000 kernel to specific refinements to IIS itself. In addition, for developing Web sites and applications, IIS 5.0 includes an enhanced version of the Active Server Pages (ASP) server-scripting environment.

Setting up a Web server with Windows 2000 is very simple. It is integrated with the operating system and is installed by default on both Server and Advanced Server.

Successfully integrating the Internet into your business generally requires more than a Web server, however. Creating custom Web sites and dynamic interactions with employees, customers, and partners requires Web-enabled programming services. That’s where the Windows 2000 application services come in.

Application Services

To make it easier to create Internet-enabled software, Windows 2000 includes integrated application services that operate hand in hand with IIS 5.0. Using these services, developers can build new Web-enabled applications and retrofit existing software to add Internet-based capabilities.

For example, if you’re setting up a Web-based storefront, you need to provide a way for customers to view a catalog, place an order, and track shipments. You also need to ensure that all the Web-based transactions are recorded properly in your back-end systems. These are the type of software development and integration tasks that are simplified by the Windows 2000 application services. By integrating the services required to write and connect these software processes, Windows 2000 makes it easy for developers to quickly build applications that use a consistent development and security model.

The specific application development services in Windows 2000 include:

	Component Object Model (COM+)—advanced programming model for writing component-based distributed applications, with support for transactions.
	Language independent development environment—COM+ components can be created in virtually any programming language. The IIS 5.0 ASP scripting environment supports VBScript and Jscript.
	MSMQ—messaging infrastructure allows applications to account for and take advantage of the time delays typical during the processing of Web transactions
	Data Access Technologies—Integrated data access technologies like ADO and OLE DB make it easy for your applications to access virtually any type of data.
	XML Processor—An integrated high-performance scalable XML processor lets you enable your applications and Web sites to take advantage of the XML data interchange revolution.

Building on Windows 2000

The Web and Application services in Windows 2000 take advantage of the many improvements to the core operating system. Windows 2000 supports greatly improved reliability, reduced number of required reboots, increased networking performance, increased security, and greatly improved management services.

Reliability: To ensure that your Web sites and Web applications stay up and running, the Windows 2000 Web and Application services take advantage of the increased reliability of the Windows 2000 operating system and enhancements to the core Web Services. IIS 5.0 makes it easier to restart services, and it can even automatically restart itself if a bad Web application does cause a crash. In addition, IIS 5.0 supports an improved application protection model to help make sure that bad applications can’t crash the Web server. For even greater reliability, Windows 2000 Advanced Server integrates Network Load Balancing and Microsoft Cluster Service, which allows a group of computers to work together. If one computer in the group fails, the others pick up its workload.

Scalability: With Windows 2000, you can operate everything from a single-server Web site to an enormous site running on a room full of Web servers. As your site grows, you can meet the higher performance and workload requirements by increasing your computer’s capacity (scaling up) or by adding more computers (scaling out). You can scale up by adding processors and memory or by purchasing larger servers. You can scale out by using clustering services to connect multiple servers together and network load balancing to distribute the work across the servers. Either approach is cost effective, as Windows 2000 uses inexpensive, industry-standard hardware. This also allows you to buy hardware as you need it, rather than having to overbuy to allow for site growth.

Manageability: A number of new features make it easier to manage your Web servers. For example, Windows 2000 offers greatly simplified local and remote management, which increases an administrator’s flexibility and helps reduce the amount of time spent managing the system. In addition, it is easier to run multiple sites from a single server, and you can delegate administration tasks so different people can manage different Web sites without being an administrator on the entire server. This helps administrators, because they can let department-level people manage their own Web sites while retaining control of they overall server.

Security: Windows 2000 security services provide an integrated, comprehensive, and interoperable security solution for protecting your most sensitive applications and data. Windows 2000 provides 128-bit security and takes advantage of the latest security standards such as Digest Authentication, Kerberos v5 authentication, and Fortezza. Because Windows 2000 includes Active Directory, application developers can take advantage of centralized security services for object naming and location, user authentication, single sign-on, and centralized configuration and policy management.

Software and data integration: Windows 2000 Server supports a full range of industry standards to allow you to build applications that integrate with databases, mail servers, and other existing systems. The Extended Markup Language (XML) support in Windows 2000 is particularly important for integrating information from different sources. XML is a data format for structured document interchange on the Web that gives developers a standard way to use information regardless of how it was created. Developers also have a number of options for working with applications running on other operating systems. In addition to built-in basic NetWare connectivity, Microsoft offers Services for NetWare and Services for Unix for greater integration with these systems. Windows 2000 also includes Microsoft Data Access Components such as ADO and OLE DB. These technologies give you easy access to virtually any type of data source.

Hardware Support: Windows 2000 lets you take advantage of the latest hardware to make your site even faster and more secure. Examples include multi-processor systems, smart cards, and commerce accelerators. Commerce accelerators are hardware cards that you plug into your servers to speed up the secure socket layer (SSL) processing. The accelerator offloads the specialized encryption processing required for SSL processing and frees up the processor to execute your business logic.

Conclusion

Building on the core strengths of the Windows 2000 platform, the operating system’s integrated application services make it easier for developers to write Web-enabled software that lets your business take advantage of the Internet.