In chapter 16 you explored sharing website content to the web farm to reduce overhead and management when updating web files. You can use the same technique to make the configuration of websites and bindings across the web farm automatic and simple.
Each IIS server in a web farm can be configured to use a single set of configuration files. When you create a new website or binding, it’s automatically created across every server in the farm. Imagine adding servers to the farm—instead of configuring the sites on each new server, the process occurs automatically with shared configurations, making scaling your farm a breeze.
Each server is configured to use a single set of configuration files stored on a clustered network share or in DFS, as shown in figure 17.1.
The process for configuring Shared Configurations isn’t complicated, although it can be tricky when you need to add new software, such as from WebPI, that requires binaries to be installed. This chapter covers the different configurations using a network share and DFS. It also shows you how to master the installation of additional products and avoid common problems and issues.