IIS / Tools / Compression

IISxpress 2.1 for Windows 2003, Vista, XP and 2000 now available

Chris Crowe — Thu, 10 May 2007 00:41:34 GMT

You can now download IISxpress 2.1 for Windows Vista, 2003, XP and 2000 from the download area of RipCord Software. This version will also install and run on Windows Server "Longhorn" Beta 3 (build 6001).

The major features of this release are:

Now supports Windows Vista RTM and Windows Server "Longhorn" Beta 3.
Compression Cache - static content will be stored in the cache allowing for very fast compressed responses.
User-definable CPU Loading Model - on a multi-CPU system you can specify which CPU cores are used for compression tasks.
Update check - check that you have the latest version of the software.
The installer and all binaries are now signed to prevent tampering.

Screenshots:

The compression cache stores the most recent compressed responses. You can specify the size of the cache and the number of responses to store. Responses served from the cache can be up to 10 times faster than a full compression pass.

Specify the way IISxpress uses your CPUs for compression tasks. Select from Automatic, Manual or None. In Automatic mode IISxpress will allocate a CPU for each response. In Manual mode you specify which CPU cores IISxpress is allowed to use. When None is selected the Operating System manages the division of the compression tasks.

When you use IISxpress you can control which parts of your web sites are compressed. Here all the folders below FlexWiki will not be compressed (they are shown in red).

See http://www.ripcordsoftware.com/IISxpress/default.aspx

Just a small update on the IISxpress 2.1 beta....

Chris Crowe — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 06:27:00 GMT

I have been running the IISxpress 2.1 beta for 4 days now with no problems at all. The live stats are displayed in the top right of this web site, but in 4 days it has accumilated the follows stats.

Compression Statistics
Responses:	6,349
Uncompressed:	146,085 KB
Compressed:	31,712 KB
Savings:	78.3 %

That is great news for me since the blog site was taking about 80% of my monthly allocation of bandwidth, it will be interesting at the end of the month to see the savings.

IISxpress 2.1 (beta) - Ripcord Software wants you

Chris Crowe — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 17:23:00 GMT

Ripcord Software has been working hard on their new version of IISxpress. IISxpress is a powerful and highly configurable compression plug-in for IIS. IISxpress will significantly reduce the bandwidth requirements of your web site, reducing your costs and giving your users the best web browsing experience possible.

Some of the features of this product

Control your IIS compression settings by file type, content type, URI (virtual directory) and IP address.

View in real-time your IIS server's performance; monitor CPU usage, memory usage and compression effectiveness.

Compatible with all major browsers: Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Firefox, Opera and Safari.

This beta is version 2.1 for 32bit and 64bit Windows Vista, 2003, XP and 2000. This version will also install and run on Windows Server "Longhorn" build 5600.

The major features of this release are:

Now supports Windows Vista RTM and Windows Server "Longhorn" 5600.
Compression Cache - static content will be stored in the cache allowing for very fast compressed responses.
User-definable CPU Loading Model - on a multi-CPU system you can specify which CPU cores are used for compression tasks.
Update check - check that you have the latest version of the software.
The installer and all binaries are now signed to prevent tampering.

Screenshots:

You can see how the compression can work - requesting my Home Page would normally return 85KB, but with the IISXpress 2.1 it is now returning only 15KB, that is an 82% saving on bandwidth.

Note: Not all files will compress this much, but this does show you how much you could save.

*

The compression cache stores the most recent compressed responses. You can specify the size of the cache and the number of responses to store. Responses served from the cache can be up to 10 times faster than a full compression pass.

When you use IISxpress you can control which parts of your web sites are compressed. Here all the folders below FlexWiki will not be compressed (they are shown in red).

Great news for workstation users of IISxpress, version 2.1.

When version 2.1 is released it will be available for FREE for all users of Windows Vista, Windows XP Professional and Windows 2000 Professional.

Take the IISxpress SpeedTest challenge.

Click here or here to see what HTTP compression could do for you.

Download here

http://www.ripcordsoftware.com/cs/files/default.aspx

Microsoft releases a new download center for IIS (everything in one place)

Chris Crowe — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 19:36:00 GMT

DownloadCENTER for IIS.net has been released!

The DownloadCENTER at IIS.net, is a community hotspot for discovering, sharing, reviewing and promoting IIS-related solutions in a single place. Dozens of existing downloads, for all versions of IIS – both from Microsoft and the community – are already available in DownloadCENTER today.

This new feature of IIS.net is particularly relevant with the release of IIS7 in Windows Vista. The latest release of Microsoft’s Web server has a completely modular architecture which features over forty pluggable components that can be easily added, removed or even replaced with custom implementations.

This powerful extensibility support is available to both .NET and C/C++ developers. In the future, DownloadCENTER is expected to house a large number of IIS7 extensions submitted by not only the IIS team but the developers and partner ISVs of the IIS community as well.

To learn more about the DownloadCenter, read IIS Product Unit Manager, Bill Staples’ blog post about it or check it out yourself today!

IIS - [Commercial] Attenuate for IIS

Chris Crowe [IIS MVP] — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 20:23:00 GMT

Attenuate is an 'add-on' for Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS). Attenuate facilitates the imposition of a variety of bandwidth constraints (throttling) without rejection of service. These include:

Total server download rate.
Total server upload rate (asp).
Individual (connection) upload rate.
Rule based assignment of download rate constraints. Rules are specified as wild-card strings. Constraints can be specified as both/either connection or total.

Examples of use include limiting download rates of .zip and .exe files on a per directory basis, limiting .jpeg and .gif download rates sitewide, and preserving bandwidth where streaming media is used. These techniques permit valuable server capacity to be stretched.

For more details see http://www.tcpdata.com/att_overview.shtml

IIS - Using WMI and VBScript to Change HTTP Compression Settings in IIS 6

Chris Crowe [IIS MVP] — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 16:57:00 GMT

I found an interesting piece of code online for adjusting the IIS compression settings in IIS 6 using WMI and VBScript on WindowsITPro - although you must be a registered user you can download the code.

See http://www.windowsitpro.com/WindowsScripting/Article/ArticleID/44335/44335.html

Or just incase the code is gone click here

IIS - ISAPI Filter - [Commercial] Port 80 HttpZip

Chris Crowe [IIS MVP] — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 05:34:00 GMT

HTTP compression is a safe, powerful, and affordable way to speed up Web sites and applications from 2.5 to 50 times faster while reducing bandwidth costs.

httpZip is an IIS server module for ISAPI-based compression on IIS 4, 5, and 6.0 Web servers. The software compresses static and dynamic Web content using encoding algorithms supported by all modern browsers, with flawless decompression secured by real-time browser compatibility checking.

Detailed httpZip reporting shows your files reduced to as little as 2% of their original size! httpZip takes compression even farther with optional HTML and CSS code optimization to improve performance and combat hackers' source sifting. With httpZip's built-in caching feature, static and dynamic files can be accessed in pre-compressed format to minimize recompression processing. The result is faster, more efficient page loads, happier users, reduced transmission costs, and Web servers that can handle more volume!

Current cost for a Single Serfver (unlimited domains) as of August 2005 is $350 USD

You can also perform a live check on your site to determine what % compression you may get from their web site. The comparision below was done on my blog in August 2005 and can show the potential that compression can have on your pages.

File Size Comparison (in bytes):
Original size:	61559 bytes
Size if compressed:	14920 bytes
Possible savings in bytes:	46639 bytes
Percentage saved by compression:	76.0%
Transfer speed improvement:	4.1 X

For more details see - http://www.port80software.com/products/httpzip

IIS - ISAPI Filter - [Commerial] IISxpress Compression 1.1

Chris Crowe [IIS MVP] — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 05:27:00 GMT

IISxpress is a powerful and highly configurable compression plug-in for IIS, the industry standard web server for the Windows platform. IISxpress will significantly reduce the bandwidth requirements of your web site, reducing your costs and giving your users the best web browsing experience possible.

IISxpress is ideally suited for deployment on Internet facing web servers, corporate intranet web servers in a WAN/LAN environment and for home users running a web site on an low bandwidth connection (ADSL or cable)

Control your compression settings by file type, content type, URI (virtual directory) and IP address.
View in real-time your server's performance; monitor CPU usage, memory usage and compression effectiveness.
Compatible with all major browsers: Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Firefox, Opera and Safari.

Cost as of August 2005 was $50 USD

For more details see - http://www.ripcordsoftware.com/IISxpress/index.htm