Web Servers
In Commerce Server, a Web server is a computer with Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0 installed. To use a Web server with Commerce Server 2000, you must install Commerce Server on the same computer as IIS.
In Commerce Server, a Web server is associated with one or more applications; different applications can share the same Web server. The Web server contains the Active Server Pages (ASP) files and subfolders for the application. One application may have several Web servers that, taken together, form a Web farm.
To add ASP files to a Web server, you use the Commerce Server Site Packager to unpack the Web server. The Commerce Web server object is added to the application when unpacking is complete. In Commerce Server Manager, a Web server object is exposed under the associated application.
The Web server object contains properties needed by the Data Warehouse to import log files. When a Web server is added, the following properties in IIS are automatically populated the Commerce Server Administration database.
| Property | Description |
| Server name | The name of the computer on which IIS is installed. |
| IP Address | The Internet Protocol (IP) address for the IIS Web site of the application. |
| Log file path | The path to which the IIS Web site of the application is to write events, for example, C:\Winnt\System32\LogFiles\Log1. |
| Log file period | The length of time the IIS Web site of the application will retain the log file before it overwrites the data. |
From the Web server node in Commerce Server Manager, you can view or change these properties. If you change the properties in Commerce Server Manager, you must manually change them in IIS. If you change the properties in IIS, you can use the Synchronize Values button in Commerce Server Manager to copy the new values from IIS to Commerce Server.
Commerce Server supports Web servers that are not running IIS and do not include Commerce Server components. This enables you to make the Web server log files available to the Data Warehouse for import. For more information, see Adding a Non-Commerce Application and Web Server.
It is possible that different applications might share a Web server. Each application has a unique URL; a single IIS Web site can serve unique URLs. For example, the same IIS Web site could serve both www.microsoft.com and www.microsoft.com/commerceserver.
If you are running a Web farm, you need to replicate your Web servers. It is recommended that you use Microsoft Application Center 2000 or another product to perform content replication.
See Also
Adding a Web Server to an Application