Deploying IIS 6.0 applciation to IIS 5.0 box.....

[Tam OShanter]

Hello All,
Question regarding application compatibility...

We have been developing an asp.net application and deployed to a test
environment consisting of
Windows server 2003 Web Edition, IIS 6.0 and MDAC 2.8 SP2.

Prior to production deployment, it was noticed (I know.....) that our
production server is in fact running Windows 2000 with IIS5.0

Will my 2003/IIS 6.0 application work with my Win2k/IIS5.0 setup?

I would assume not, but have been engaged by a developer that finds my
concerns with this discrepancy to be somewhat laughable.

Can any one provide me with a good answer, as I have looked and information
on this topic is lacking (probably because no one would consider doing what
my developer says is a piece of cake...)

Please help.

Any and all feedback is most welcome.

Thanks for your time.

B.

 

[Lau Lei Cheong]

Tam,

ASP.NET projects are compiled to MSIL before deployment, and it works as
long as the running platform supports .NET framework. (The .NET runtime will
take care of any discrepancies, sounds much like JVM things but a
development framework is responsible to keep the "common" functions behaves
the same across all platforms it declared to support, unless otherwise
specified.)

Because Win2k is supported by .NET framework v1.1, there is no reason
why your project developed on Win2k3 cannot run on Win2k unless your page
use some Win2k specific APIs like those concerned with ADs. (Of course IIS
settings may differs, but not for the DLL/ASPX files)

Regards,
Lau Lei Cheong

 

[Scott Allen]

Hi Tam:

You shouldn't face much of a problem. It's always good to test in the
same environment you'll be running in, but for the most part web apps
don't use APIs specific to either platform.

I've summarized a few differences between IIS 5 and IIS 6 here:
http://odetocode.com/Blogs/scott/archive/2005/07/10/1925.aspx

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

Hi, Tam.

You should have no problems, as Lau Lei indicated.

Adding to his comments, I'd also make sure that your development
server running IIS 6.0 is set to IIS 5.0 Isolation Mode.

To configure IIS for IIS 5.0 isolation mode, in the IIS Manager,
expand the local computer, right-click Web Sites, and then click
Properties.

Click the Service tab, select the Run WWW service in IIS 5.0 isolation mode
check box, and then click OK. To start the WWW service, click Yes.

It will take a few seconds to restart in IIS 5.0 Isolation mode.

That way, you can mimic, very closely, what the expected
results will be when the application runs on W2K/IIS 5.0.

What this means is that your applications will, like they do in IIS 5,

1. have a dependency on Inetinfo.exe.

2. require Read Raw Data Filters

3. require to run under Dllhost.exe

Running in IIS 5.0 Isolation mode will allow you to load test
your application in IIS 6.0 under the similar conditions which it
will run under in IIS 5.0.