I recently worked with a customer who was looking at using IIS Smooth Streaming as their Content Distribution mechanism.

They also wanted to use ARR Disk Caching to cache the content on the ARR Tier to prevent round trips to the Smooth Streaming Server.
(Editors note: This was all pre-recorded content and so caching is a good idea. For Live Streaming you may not want to cache traffic.)

So I configured 2 Servers with IIS Media Services 4.1 and set them up with the Big Buck Bunny content.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=18199

I set up the Content Player from https://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9752687 also on these Servers.

I then tested this by browsing from a client machine and connected to the Stream on both machines.

Then on my ARR Server I created a Server Farm as discussed at
https://www.iis.net/learn/extensions/configuring-application-request-routing-(arr)/define-and-configure-an-application-request-routing-server-farm 

I also enabled Disk Caching as discussed at
https://www.iis.net/learn/extensions/configuring-application-request-routing-(arr)/configure-and-enable-disk-cache-in-application-request-routing

I used C:\ARRCache as my cache folder and we would recommend that you also consider using a secondary storage location on a file share.

Then I changed the Content Player URL to point to https://DNSNAMEOFARR/BigBuckBunny/BigBuckBunny.ism/manifest

I tested this again from the Client and I can see the fragments being cached on the disk.

C:\>tree C:\ArrCache

C:\ARRCACHE

└───testurl

    └───BigBuckBunny

        └───BigBuckBunny.ism

├───QualityLevels(1427000)

├───QualityLevels(160000)

├───QualityLevels(2056000)

├───QualityLevels(230000)

├───QualityLevels(2962000)

├───QualityLevels(331000)

├───QualityLevels(477000)

├───QualityLevels(688000)

            └───QualityLevels(991000)

You might also want to consider enabling Request Consolidation as discussed below.

https://www.iis.net/learn/extensions/configuring-application-request-routing-(arr)/configure-request-consolidation-feature-in-application-request-routing 

“ARR has introduced the concept of request consolidation. The idea is to check the cache-miss requests that are "in flight" before forwarding the requests to the origin server (or if the cache nodes are tiered, the requests will be sent to the next tier server.) “

This might help reduce the number of requests sent to the origin servers.

I hope this helps.

The VS and Asp.Net links came from https://madskristensen.net/ and https://www.hanselman.com/blog/

If you’re not following them on Twitter then I would recommend that you do.

https://devdocs.io/ has a combination of API docs for Http, CSS, JavaScript, HTML Etc all easily searchable.
https://www.asp.net/visual-studio/overview/2013 has some videos on the Asp.Net updates for Visual Studio 2013.
https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/a16c2d07-b2e1-4a25-87d9-194f04e7a698 is the Side Waffle Template Pack which adds a whole list of new items types for Web Developers.

What’s new in Server 2012 R2 for IIS?
https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/MDC-B303#fbid=OgEhr7LR9L9 

Windows Azure Web Sites and On-Premises Connectivity
https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/WAD-B327#fbid=OgEhr7LR9L9 

Windows Azure Web Sites: An Architecture and Technical Deep Dive
https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/WAD-B329#fbid=OgEhr7LR9L9 

TypeScript: Scaling Up JavaScript
https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/DEV-B203#fbid=OgEhr7LR9L9 

Microsoft ASP.NET SignalR: The Real-Time Web Made Simple
https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/DEV-B302#fbid=OgEhr7LR9L9

Building OData Services with ASP.NET Web API
https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/DEV-B308#fbid=OgEhr7LR9L9

KnockoutJS and MVVM: Tips for Building HTML and JavaScript Web Apps
https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/DEV-B338#fbid=OgEhr7LR9L9

Single Page Applications with Microsoft ASP.NET
https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/DEV-B350#fbid=OgEhr7LR9L9

Advanced Debugging of ASP.NET Applications with Visual Studio 2012
https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/DEV-B402#fbid=OgEhr7LR9L9

ASP.NET Web API: Web Services for Websites, Modern Apps, and Mobile Apps
https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/DEV-B360#fbid=OgEhr7LR9L9

Getting a Designer/Developer Workflow That Works
https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/DEV-B208#fbid=OgEhr7LR9L9


Miscellaneous Developer Links since my last link blog.

This video is helpful for understanding Regular Expressions.
”Best of Fluent 2012: /Reg(exp){2}lained/: Demystifying Regular Expressions – YouTube “
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkluES9Rvak 

ASP.NET Web API: CORS support and Attribute Based Routing Improvements
https://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2013/04/19/asp-net-web-api-cors-support-and-attribute-based-routing-improvements.aspx

Running Unit Tests when Deploying ASP.NET to Windows Azure Websites
https://blog.maartenballiauw.be/post/2013/03/26/Running-unit-tests-when-deploying-ASPNET-to-Windows-Azure-Web-Sites.aspx

Moving from Amazon Web Services to Azure Web Sites
https://www.jeff.wilcox.name/2013/04/4thandmayor-azure-websites/

Windows Azure SDK 2.0 for .NET
https://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2013/04/30/announcing-the-release-of-windows-azure-sdk-2-0-for-net.aspx

Scott Hanselman and testing New Relic Performance Monitoring
https://www.hanselman.com/blog/PennyPinchingInTheCloudEnablingNewRelicPerformanceMonitoringOnWindowsAzureWebsites.aspx 

David Ebbo: Publishing to Azure Web Sites from any git/hg repo
https://blog.davidebbo.com/2013/04/publishing-to-azure-web-sites-from-any.html?m=1

1) Reverse Proxy allows you to say that requests for www.contoso.com should be forwarded onto a different Web Server in your environment.

2) Web Farm Routing allows you to forward requests for www.contoso.com to a number of origin servers in your environment.

Here’s how to remove the header in each of those scenarios.

Removing the header in the reverse Proxy scenario.

Using AppCmd.exe disable the response header.

“appcmd.exe set config  -section:system.webServer/proxy /arrResponseHeader:"False"  /commit:apphost”

Removing the header in the Web Farm Scenario.

If you have a Web Farm called “Test1234” like I do then you can again use AppCmd.exe to disable the header.

”appcmd.exe set config  -section:webFarms /[name='Test1234'].applicationRequestRouting.protocol.arrResponseHeader:"False"  /commit:apphost”


How to verify that these are the right elements you should be editing.

The schema for ARR is in the C:\Windows\system32\inetsrv\config\schema\arr_schema.xml file.

If you look at this file you will see that this describes where the responseHeader elements reside.

In my reply I highlighted the following links.

Asp.Net Web Application Security.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/330a99hc.aspx

PagesSection.ValidateRequest (This setting enables request validation on the incoming request.)
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.configuration.pagessection.validaterequest.aspx

For more on Scripting Exploits read this.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/w1sw53ds.aspx

How Do I Understand and Defend Against Script Injection Attacks in ASP.NET
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/w1sw53ds.aspx

Prevent JavaScript Attacks.
https://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/older-versions/security/preventing-javascript-injection-attacks-cs

XSRF/CSRF Prevention in ASP.NET MVC and Web Pages
https://www.asp.net/mvc/overview/security/xsrfcsrf-prevention-in-aspnet-mvc-and-web-pages

I hope this helps.

Scott Hanselman talks about the new Log Stream functionality at
https://www.hanselman.com/blog/StreamingDiagnosticsTraceLoggingFromTheAzureCommandLinePlusGlimpse.aspx 

Vishal Joshi introduces Web Matrix 3 Preview and how it integrates with Windows Azure Web Sites.
https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Web+Camps+TV/Vishal-Joshi-Introduces-WebMatrix-3?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

From AzureConf this week we have these 2 great videos.

Windows Azure Web Sites - Things They Don't Teach Kids in School
https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/windowsazure/Windows-AzureConf-2013/Windows-Azure-Web-Sites-Things-They-Don-t-Teach-Kids-in-School

From Collocated Servers to Windows Azure Web Sites in Three Days
https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/windowsazure/Windows-AzureConf-2013/From-Collocated-Servers-to-Windows-Azure-Web-Sites-in-Three-Days

General Developer Links

SignalR Tutorial
https://tech.pro/tutorial/1146/building-a-shopping-cart-with-signalr-aspnet-web-api-and-knockoutjs

Getting Symbols and Source with Asp.Net Nightly builds
https://blogs.msdn.com/b/webdev/archive/2012/08/30/getting-symbols-and-source-with-asp-net-nightly-nuget-packages.aspx

Maoni Stephens talks about CLR GC at

https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Defrag-Tools/Defrag-Tools-33-CLR-GC-Part-1

https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Defrag-Tools/Defrag-Tools-34-CLR-GC-Part-2

The Vanilla Web Diet talk from AngleBrackets.Org
https://christianheilmann.com/2013/04/09/the-vanilla-web-diet-keynote-at-anglebrackets-in-las-vegas/

https://dabblet.com/
An online CSS Editor Platform to play around with prototyping.

I also love these Blog Sites.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/
https://alistapart.com/

And finally the Web Platform site is where all of the vendors are coming together to build a better web.
https://www.webplatform.org/

I’ve recently solved this issue on my machine and thought I would share this with everyone.

Visual Studio 2012 is configured to use IIS Express by default and on my laptop I noticed that I started to see this error.



So I looked at how best to resolve this issue.
Sites from Web Matrix worked fine in IIS Express and IIS Express would launch from the command line.

I started by using Process Monitor to troubleshoot this issue.

I started Process Monitor and set up a filter like this.



I started by looking at the Process Start event.




I looked at the Properties of this event and noted that the Process was starting like this.

"C:\Program Files (x86)\IIS Express\iisexpress.exe"  /config:"C:\Users\MyUserName\Documents\WebMatrix\config\config\applicationhost.config"  /site:"WebApplication2(1)" /apppool:"Clr4IntegratedAppPool"

Then I tried running this from a command prompt and see this underlying error.

”The following site was not found in the configuration file: 'WebApplication2(1)'”

So now I know that

a) My IIS Express install is using the Web Matrix Config file.

b) It can’t find the site from my Visual Studio 2012 solution.

Issue Cause.

When Visual Studio 2012 is creating the site in IIS Express it is updating the config file at C:\Users\MyUsername\Documents\IISExpress\config\ and not the Web Matrix one.

I then remembered than when I installed Web Matrix it told me it could not access the IIS Express config file and if I would like to create a new config file.

It turns out that this adds a new REG_SZ value called CustomUserHome at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\IISExpress.
This points to the Web Matrix Config file and not the IIS Express one.

I edited this registry key to point to C:\Users\MyUsername\Documents\IISExpress and now it all works.



I hope this helps.

If you want to see all of the Windows 8 Sessions then this link will help you.
https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012?sort=sequential&direction=desc&term=&t=windows-8

I hope this helps.

TITLE	URL
Designing Games For Windows 8	https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/2-106
Developing a Windows Store App	https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/3-125
Powering your Apps with Microsoft Accounts	https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/3-138
The Microsoft Design Language	https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/2-116
Core Technologies for Windows 8 Games	https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/3-107
Tips on self-evaluating the UX of your app	https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/2-118
Windows Store: How does it work?	https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/2-120
Developing a Windows Store App using DirectX and C++	https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/3-109
Performance tips for Windows Store Apps using XAML	https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/4-103
Performance Tips for Windows Store Apps using Direct X and C++.	https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/4-102
Deep Dive into WinJS	https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/4-101
Building mixed-language Apps	https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/4-100
Writing Window Store Apps with JQuery	https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/3-130
Top Tips for iOS devs building Windows Store Apps.	https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/3-128
Diagnosing performance and memory issues in JavaScript-based Windows Store Apps	https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/3-008