Why it's not possible to host an ASP.Net web service other then IIS?

Question

Hi All,

I am just curious to know the reason why it's not possible to host an ASP.Net web service other then IIS ? While in WCF it's possible to host a service in IIS, WAS or any console application.

Please clear the doubt..

Answer 1

ASP.NET is actually not specifically bound to IIS. The .NET Framework includes an HttpRuntime which may be used to write a custom hosting platform. You could easily write a console application, like you can for WCF, that will provide the ASP.NET runtime without IIS.

Technically speaking, you could also write an Apache module that hooked into either a separate .NET process hosting the ASP.NET HttpRuntime, or possibly hook directly into a .NET assembly. I don't know much about writing extensions to Apache, however assuming you can bridge the Apache unmanage to .NET managed gap, you would be able to host ASP.NET in Apache (which should be possible, you might need a native & managed C++ library to mediate.)

Microsoft's .NET framework is amazingly extensible. You can pretty much achieve whatever you set your mind to, if you have the will and the time (and perhaps the funds.) However, the .NET platform does encapsulate an immense amount of functionality, and it is up to Microsoft to choose how they spend their money. Naturally, they have their own business to worry about, and I would not expect them to expend tremendous amounts of money giving a leading edge to their competitors (it would be bad business, and quite a disappointing competitive practice, if you ask me.)