Windows process Activation Service

Windows Server 2008 provides us with a new tool called Windows process Activation Service (Windows Process Activation Service,WAS). This service replaces the WWW service used in application pool configuration management and worker process management. The functionality provided in the WWW service used to run only HTTP sites. By using WAS, these features can now also run non-HTTP sites. WAS is not part of IIS 7.0, but an external service that works with IIS to manage application pools and processes.

WAS is a prerequisite for the normal operation of IIS7.0. During the installation of IIS7.0, WAS will be installed automatically. IIS is configured using an applicationHost.config profile, while WAS needs to use the same applicationHost.config profile. When starting the server, WAS needs to read the configuration and share the configuration data with the listener adapter. Using this configuration information, the listener adapter creates a communication link between the WAS and the protocol listener. At this point, the protocol listener only needs to listen and does not need to do anything else. When the protocol listener receives a request, the WAS determines whether there is a worker process, and if there is a worker process, it passes the request to the worker process; if there is no worker process, it starts a worker process so that the worker process processes the request.