I’ve been a little busy and catching up on Windows 8/IIS8.  Here is some good news from the IIS/ASP.NET team.  A couple useful module released for IIS 7.5.  For those running SharePoint farms and the app pool warm-up takes ‘forever’.  Here is a way to help.   This is definitely great news for IIS web server administrators.  Thanks Shawn and MS for releasing this much needed module.  Enjoy!!

 
“We are pleased to announce that Release Candidate builds for the following IIS extensions are now available for download:

· Application Initialization for IIS 7.5 (replacement for the previous “Application Warmup” beta extension)

· Dynamic IP Restrictions for IIS 7/7.5

See below for details and download links.

Application Initialization for IIS 7.5 (Release Candidate)

Application Initialization 1.0 for IIS 7.5 enables website administrators to configure IIS to proactively perform initialization tasks for one or more web applications. While an application is being initialized, IIS can also be configured to return an alternate response such as static content as a placeholder or “splash page” until an application has completed its initialization tasks. The module includes the following features:

· Introduces the concept of a “warmup period” to the server.

· Enables developers to control the behavior of their applications during the warmup period.

· Enables server administrators to “pre-load” important applications by initializing them as soon as the worker process starts.

· Allows seamless recycling of pre-loaded application pools with no user-perceptible impact.

x64 download: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=247817

x86 download: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=247816

Support forum: http://forums.iis.net/1165.aspx

Documentation:

IIS 8.0 Application Initialization (this was written for IIS 8, but this extension provides the same functionality for IIS 7.5)

Dynamic IP Restrictions for IIS 7/7.5 (Release Candidate)

The Dynamic IP Restrictions Extension for IIS provides IT Professionals and Hosters a configurable module that helps mitigate or block Denial of Service Attacks or cracking of passwords through brute-force by temporarily blocking Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of HTTP clients who follow a pattern that could be conducive to one of such attacks. This module can be configured such that the analysis and blocking could be done at the Web Server or the Web Site level. The module includes the following features:

· Seamless integration into IIS 7.0 Manager.

· Dynamically blocking of requests from IP address based on either of the following criteria:

o The number of concurrent requests.

o The number of requests over a period of time.

· Blocking of requests can be configured at either site or server level.

· Configurable deny actions allows IT Administrators to specify what response would be returned to the client. The module support return status codes 401, 403, 404 or blocking the requests entirely.

· Support for IPv6 addresses.

· Support for web servers behind a proxy or firewall.

x64 download: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=247814

x86 download: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=247815

Support forum: http://forums.iis.net/1043.aspx

Documentation:

Using Dynamic IP Restrictions”