IIS 4.0 Architecture

Source: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/WindowsServer2003/Library/IIS/93ddbb51-5826-4ebd-a434-24c5fd103d3a.mspx

My thoughts:

Again, I am gonna pick out the source information from Technet - which is indeed a great place to gather technical information. To speak about IIS architecture, we must first need to know the version stand-point. Though we have IIS 2.0, 3.0 - let me start with IIS 4.0 and touchbase on IIS 7.0, being honest with you, my basic knowledge span over from IIS 4.0. :-)

Before you proceed with this blog post, I recommend you to keep referring to my blog on IIS Version Comparison. This process will let you gather a high-level detail about the varied versions and their features, which in-turn, mapped to the terminologies that would be used from this posting onwards.

IIS 4.0:
Well, here is something very little which I would like to share on this version of IIS. It is confined to 32 BIT Architecture Model (did we have 64 BIT those days!?) and the Application Isolation Mode was mapped to MTX.EXE. Which means, your application mode, when configured as Out-Process Isolation, the User Mode Memory will be allocated on the executable image MTX.EXE. Whereas, the same MTX.EXE will not be in picture at all, incase if you go by configuring your application as an In-Process Isolation Mode. In such a situation, the application memory will be sharing the memory space with Inetinfo.exe, which is the back-end process for executing IIS Admin Service. If you refer to IIS 5.0 Architecture (an upcoming blog of mine), I guess you will then be able to visualize on MTX.EXE as compared with DLLHOST.EXE. Ofcourse, many other feature enhancements have been made on IIS 5.0! :-)

For beginners: You will be able to find inetinfo.exe in Start -> Run -> Services.msc -> Properties of IIS Admin Service. If IIS is successfully installed and configured on a Windows OS, you will also find inetinfo.exe as a process in Task Manager of that webserver.

Wanna know more about these terminologies; Out-Process Isolation Mode / In-Process Isolation Mode / User Mode / Kernel Mode Memory Space? Suggest you to wait for my next blog on this topic - IIS Memory Management. :-)

Cheers,

Siva