Internet Information Services (IIS)

A web server is a process for hosting web applications. The web server allows an application to process messages that arrive through specific TCP ports (by default). There are two commonly used web server applications available: Apache and Internet Information Services. Apache is an open-source installable application commonly used on open system platforms such as Linux, whereas IIS is a server role configured on top of a licensed copy of Windows Server.

Internet Information Services (IIS) is a flexible, general-purpose web server from Microsoft that runs on Windows systems to serve requested HTML pages or files. As a core Windows product, IIS comes integrated with Windows Server and runs on Windows OS.

IIS fulfills the role of the Web server, responding to requests for files from Web clients such as IE, and logging activity. This basic functionality allows web servers to share and deliver information across local area networks (LAN), such as corporate intranets, and wide area networks (WAN), such as the Internet.

IIS maintains information about the location of content files, what security identities have access to those files, how content files are separated into applications, and what URLs are mapped to those applications.

IIS is found extensively in data centers across the globe and powers some of the most popular websites online including Comcast.com, Disney.com and Ebay.com.
Internet Information Services (IIS)