The software giant has backed claims the next release of its Web server will integrate development technologies and modularise many core features.

In a statement this morning, Microsoft confirmed a number of new features in version 7 of Internet Information Services (IIS7), due out in early 2006 with its next-generation operating system Longhorn. The details had been previously outlined this week on the blogs of some of its key industry partners.

The company said IIS7 would create "a single development and administrative experience" for distributed applications. ZDNet Australia  understands this refers to the integration of the ASP.NET development technologies into IIS.

In addition, "a new task-based administration tool" will be available, along with "improved command-line scripting" and better diagnostics tools that would administrators to track down the culprits behind poor performance on their servers.

Microsoft confirmed much of IIS7 would consist of optional modules, producing what it called a "reduced attack surface" for would-be hackers and diminishing the need to update the entire application each time a vulnerability was found.

This also has the potential to improve performance as features can be removed if they are not needed for specific Web sites.

The company was also keen to boast about the success of the security model introduced in the current version 6 of IIS.

"Security in IIS6 was rebuilt from the code level up to reduce attack surface area and block most known types of Web attacks," the statement said. "To date, no security vulnerabilities have been discovered in the core code of IIS6. Customers can expect the same level of security in IIS7."

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