Hoster Poster : Latest Technical News

New web deployment tool is available

HosterPoster — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:46:00 GMT

Hey everyone, long time since the last blog post but we're still here and we have some great news to report. The IIS team just released the Microsoft Web Deployment Tool on www.iis.net. It is a command-line tool that provides support for deploying, synchronizing and migrating IIS 6.0 and 7.0. It supports moving configuration, content, SSL certificates and other types of data associated with a web server. You can choose to sync a single site or the entire web server. It's pretty flexible, as you'll discover from the documentation.

However - it is a technical preview, so it shouldn't be used for production servers and it may change quite a bit before it ships as a finished tool. The team is interested in feedback from the hosting community, so give it a try and let them know what you think or if you find any issues.

Check out this post for more details and to learn more from the team that built the tool: http://blogs.iis.net/msdeploy/archive/2008/01/22/welcome-to-the-web-deployment-team-blog.aspx

Hosting ASP.NET for .NET Framework 3.5 Beta 2 in Medium or Partial Trust

HosterPoster — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:26:00 GMT

If you're hosting the .NET Framework 3.5 (Beta 2) or planning on it, keep in mind there is some additional work required for the Beta 2 bits. The attached document describes two issues (and their corresponding workarounds) when hosting ASP.NET websites using .NET Framework 3.5 Beta 2 under Medium or partial trust. The issues and workarounds apply only to .NET Framework 3.5 Beta 2, and will be addressed in the final version of the product.

The first issue is for developers and this section explains what they need to change so they can create partial trust applications in Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2. The second issue covers what a hoster needs to enable in Code Access Security on the server in order to host an ASP.NET application in partial trust that leverages LINQ. Specifically, there are flags needed for the ReflectionPermission and this is covered in the LINQ features section starting on page 4.

Matt Gibbs made a post in his blog for developers and hosters can share this information with their customers.

Go live with IIS 7 today!

HosterPoster — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:24:00 GMT

The IIS team has announced that Windows Server Codename "Longhorn" Server Beta 3 has reached a high level of quality and is ready for your testing. You can test awesome new hosting features in IIS 7 and roll it out for beta hosting.

Find out how to get the bits!

FPSE on IIS 7 Longhorn

HosterPoster — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:32:00 GMT

An update from Robert about FPSE:

"Because Microsoft realizes that the FrontPage Server Extensions are essential to many web hosting companies, the Internet Information Services product team is researching the development of an updated version of FPSE 2002 that will work with Microsoft Windows codenamed "Longhorn" and Microsoft Windows Vista."

http://blogs.iis.net/robert_mcmurray/archive/2007/02/08/frontpage-server-extensions-on-vista-and-longhorn.aspx.

SharePoint v3 templates - the fantastic 40

HosterPoster — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 16:48:00 GMT

The new SharePoint templates have arrived. To provide a complete solution, especially for small businesses, SharePoint v3 offers these pre-packaged templates. Each one solves a business problem and offers not only a fully functioning site out of the box, but also allows for customization so you can differentiate what you offer.

If you don't have SharePoint in your environment yet, maybe it's time! To get the technical deployment details, read the whitepaper we just blogged about at http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?AssetID=AM102157711033.

Download the templates and learn more about them: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/sharepoint/wssapps/templates/default.mspx.

To see the templates in action:

Visit http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/sharepoint/templates/default.aspx and browse the links on the left-hand pane. The Business Performance Reporting template shows you a business who is collecting customer satisfaction data and sharing this information with his colleagues.

SharePoint (WSS v3) Guidance for Shared Hosting

HosterPoster — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 02:59:00 GMT

SharePoint v3 offers a lot of great features and functionality for hosters and this whitepaper talks about how to use these features to create a shared hosting solution. The whitepaper is built upon lessons learned from a dozen or so hosting partners conducted over the past several months. The guide includes things like ways to deploy SharePoint, how to use forms authentication with SharePoint, how to provision SharePoint sites, migration from WSS v2 to v3 and even a section about deployment issues in hosting scenarios.

Download it here: http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?AssetID=AM102157711033

The SharePoint team also has a blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint.

PHP and IIS together

HosterPoster — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 16:32:00 GMT

Not particularly new news now, but if you haven't started investigating PHP on Windows yet, here's your chance. Not only did IIS collaborate with Zend, they also made a download available for IIS 7 and IIS 6. From the news article on iis.net, looks like the effort is just starting - "This announcement coincides with a broader announcement regarding collaboration between Microsoft and Zend to improve performance and stability of PHP on the Windows platform."

Get the inside scoop, including configuration, performance and other goodies: http://blogs.iis.net/bills/archive/2006/10/31/PHP-on-IIS.aspx

Download it: http://www.iis.net/default.aspx?tabid=1000051

Follow the step-by-step downloading and installation walkthrough: http://www.iis.net/default.aspx?tabid=2&subtabid=25&i=1207

Do you want to get your data from SQL Express (mdf) to a SQL Server database?

HosterPoster — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 16:56:00 GMT

There's a new tool available from the SQL team that helps you transfer your data from a local SQL Express file to a hosted SQL Server database. We've all heard customers asking how to get their local mdf into their hosted database. Now there is an answer.

Here's the tool: http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=sqlhost&title=Database%20Publishing%20Wizard

Here's a blog post from the SQL team: http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlserver/archive/2006/10/16/sql-server-hosting-toolkit-launched.aspx

Patch for partial trust support in the Enterprise Library for .NET 2.0

HosterPoster — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 00:22:00 GMT

The Enterprise Library for .NET 2.0 released a patch to support partial trust - meaning that all you folks who want to use the library on servers running in partial trust (like Medium trust) can have fun!

Read all about this change at http://blogs.msdn.com/tomholl/archive/2006/06/30/652955.aspx.

Atlas March CTP is Live

HosterPoster — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 03:33:00 GMT

Atlas makes it possible to easily take advantage of AJAX techniques on the Web and enables you to create ASP.NET pages with a rich, responsive UI and server communication. The March Atlas CTP (Customer Technology Preview) is released with a "go live license" which means developers can deploy applications built with this technology on production servers.

There is a ton of great information (download, samples, videos, walkthroughs, etc) about Atlas at http://atlas.asp.net so instead of duplicating that information I am going to focus on the few things that are relevant to you as a hoster:

Atlas has friction free deployment, so developers with FTP access to the server will be able to deploy the Atlas code and their applications the same way they would any other ASP.NET application.
The Atlas code will run in Medium trust. However, a primary usage of Atlas is to build mash-ups which typical involve calling web services on remote machines. To enable web service calls, outside of the requesting application, requires a modification to medium trust. Find out how to do this by reading Enabling WebPermission in Medium Trust.
Some of the samples distributes with the Atlas CTP rely on the XMLField in SQL Server 2005. As a result these samples will not function properly on SQL Server 2000.
The Building Mash-Ups with Atlas walkthrough explains how to enable the .asbx file extension on IIS. Check out the Tunneling the Bridge Calls with .axd Extension article for an alternative solution with the .axd extension.

Please let us know if you find any additional issues with Atlas running in your hosted environment.