Web Servers on Windows Server Core

Windows Server 2008 running in Server Core mode will include a Web Server role along with the previously announced roles. Server Core mode allows IT managers to install the minimal set of files and components necessary to support a given role. Web servers on Server Core will run Internet Information Services (IIS) 7 and require less maintenance and better resist attack than conventional Windows Web servers. However, Server Core Web services will not support ASP.NET—Microsoft’s most popular Web server technology.

The new plan for Server Core was announced at Microsoft’s June 2007 TechEd conference. Previously announced roles for Server Core mode include file and print servers, Active Directory domain services, and various infrastructure services, such as Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and Domain Name Services (DNS).

Although the addition of a Web server role sounds like a potential boon, it has a serious drawback: Server Core mode does not support the .NET Framework and therefore does not support ASP.NET, Microsoft’s strategic Web development platform. Web development on Server Core must use other interfaces, such as the Common Gateway Interface (CGI), the Internet Server API, or Active Server Pages. Microsoft has tried to make the options more appealing by removing one of the performance bottlenecks of CGI with a new implementation, called FastCGI, that runs custom code without having to launch a separate process for each request, and by partnering with Zend to bring a faster, more reliable implementation of PHP to Windows. (Zend is the creator of PHP.)