Applications
A Commerce Server 2000 application is a Web site. It is a logical representation of an application in Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0; it appears in both the Commerce Server Manager and IIS console trees. In the IIS console, an application is either at the home directory level of the Web site or at a subdirectory level of the Web site.
An application represents the Web address that a Web client accesses. When you add an application to Commerce Server, the Administration database is updated with the configuration data for the application. When you add a Web server to the application, the Active Server Pages (ASP) files are installed on the Web server computer.
When a Commerce Server site is unpacked, it typically installs two applications: one for the Web site that users access to browse and purchase products, and one for the Commerce Server Business Desk, which is used to manage that site. An application can use only the resources of the site it is belongs to.
An application includes its own Web servers, which in turn serve the ASP page content for the Web site. An application may include multiple Web servers; it always includes at least one Web server. You can set up a site at the root level of an IIS Web site or at a virtual directory any number of levels below the root.
You can perform the following functions from the IIS and Commerce Server Manager consoles:
From the application node in the IIS snap-in, you can set all properties available at the virtual directory level, including virtual directory properties, default documents, directory security, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) headers, and custom errors. You can also configure Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions and rename or delete the application.
From the application node in Commerce Server Manager, you can set the nonsecure and secure host name and IIS application path, enable HTTPS, enable Autocookie, enable an authentication filter, and configure settings common to all Web servers in the application.
For detailed information about properties that are inherited from IIS to Commerce Server, see Using Commerce Server and IIS.
See Also
Managing Commerce Application and Web Servers
Example A: Installing on a Four-Computer Clustered Configuration
Example B: Installing on a Three-Computer Non-Clustered Configuration