Built on the Best Parts of the ASP.NET Platform

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Microsoft’s existing ASP.NET platform provides a mature, well-proven set of components and facilities for developing effective and efficient web applications. First and most obviously, since ASP.NET MVC is based on the .NET platform, you have the flexibility to write code in any .NET language and access the same API features—not just in MVC itself, but in the extensive .NET class library and the vast ecosystem of third-party .NET libraries. Second, ready-made ASP.NET platform features—such as master pages, forms authentication,membership, roles, profiles, and internationalization—can reduce the amount of code you need to develop and maintain any web application, and these features are just as effective when used in the MVC Framework as they are in a classic Web Forms project. You can reuse some Web Forms built-in server controls, as well as your own custom controls from earlier ASP.NET projects, in an ASP.NET MVC application (as long as they don’t depend on Web Forms–specific notions, such as View State). Development and deployment are covered, too. Not only is ASP.NET tightly integrated into Visual Studio, it’s the native web programming technology supported by the Internet Information Services (IIS) web server built in to Windows XP, Vista, 7, and Server products. IIS, since version 7, gives first-class support to .NET managed code as a native part of its request-handling pipeline, with special treatment
for ASP.NET applications. Being built on the core ASP.NET platform, MVC applications get all these benefits. Chapter 23 explains what you need to know to deploy ASP.NET MVC applications to IIS on Windows Server.