From time to time, you're probably called on to deploy a Web application that traffics sensitive information. The deployment includes installing the application on a hardened server in such a way that no other Microsoft IIS applications can access the application files. Doing so protects sensitive information from curious or malicious users of the applications that are hosted on the same server as the sensitive information. I've always argued that if an application requires such high security, it should be on its own server. However, circumstances abound in which administrators must install a highly secure application on a server that hosts many other applications.
For example, perhaps your company acquired another company and you're consolidating data centers—but politics require that one company's applications be strictly isolated from the other company's applications, even though they coexist on the same server. In some cases, a server that hosts a mission-critical application containing sensitive information is underutilized and other applications are assigned to the server as part of a server-consolidation effort. Whatever the case, let's presume that the task has fallen to you. You've been asked to deploy a highly secure application on an IIS server that hosts other applications. What questions and considerations do you think of as you devise your plan for implementing the highest degree of application isolation you can manage? . . .
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