14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has released to web version 2.0 of Web Farm Framework 2.0 for Internet Information Services 7.0. Web Farm Framework 2.0 for IIS 7 RTW is now available through the Microsoft Download Center at no charge.
Early adopters that tested the Beta version of Web Farm Framework 2.0 for IIS 7 will need to remove the development milestone before they install the RTW Build, the software giant informed.
The Web Farm Framework project is designed to simplify the work of IT professionals that administer IIS 7 servers.
The Redmond company boasts the fact that this particular IIS extension is capable of streamlining a variety of tedious tasks associated with setting up web servers, deploying content as well as the inherent management process.
Aimed at administrators and hosting providers, the extension makes it easier to provision, scale and manage single servers or entire server farms.
The best thing about Web Farm Framework in this regard is the fact that it provides a unified interface which centralizes all server provisioning and health work for IT admins.
Of course, version 2.0 of the extension does bring to the table a number of enhancements for customers, with Microsoft highlighting the following:
“•Workflow Builder is used to define and schedule custom tasks that can be run on all servers in the farm. The tasks can be scheduled to run periodically or can be started manually by an administrator. An example of such task could be a msdeploy command to partially sync web site content.
•Windows Credential Store support allows to store the administrator credentials used for server provisioning in a secure Windows Credential Store. This enables an added layer of security when dealing with credentials in Web Farm Framework.
•Third party load balancers support via Web Farm Framework extensibility. It is possible to configure Web Farm Framework to integrate with hardware load balancers instead of relying on IIS Application Request Routing module.
•Improved support for advanced MSDeploy operations. Options of MSDeploy can be used with Web Farm Framework for advanced deployment scenarios.
•Improved support for syncing large amount of files. Several issues related to syncing large amount of files across web farm nodes have been fixed.”
Web Farm Framework 2.0 for IIS 7 RTW is available for download here.