[This is preliminary documentation and subject to change]
When configured to execute in dedicated application mode, all application code runs in an isolated environment. This design removes some of the existing bottlenecks and points of contention. Dedicated application mode allows the administrator to isolate anything from an individual Web application to multiple sites in their own self-contained Web service process. This prevents one application or site from stopping another. In addition, separating applications or sites into separate processes simplifies a number of management tasks, such as restarts (independent of all other sites or applications running on the system), changing a component used by the application, debugging, monitoring counters, throttling resources, and so forth.
Some of the benefits of this mode are illustrated in the following features:
| Feature | Description |
| Multiple application pools | Multiple application pools can be configured uniquely. |
| Recyclable worker processes | Worker processes can be configured to automatically restart based on a number of parameters. |
| Web gardens | Grouping worker processes in a single application pool called a Web garden improves scalability. |
| Configurable worker process identity | A worker process can be configured for specific identity for isolation (reliability) and security purposes. |
| Orphaned worker processes | A specific worker process that tends to fail frequently can be configured to replace itself with another process without disrupting the connection. |
| Health monitoring | The health or vitality of specific worker processes can be monitored and subsequently configured for termination and restart. |
| Process demand start | Worker processes can be configured to automatically start when the first request for a URL (owned by an application pool) arrives at the server. |
| Idle timeout | Worker processes can be configured to terminate gracefully after a time of inactivity. |
| Processor affinity | Worker process and application pools can be configured to associate with specific CPU's on multi-processor computers. |
| Rapid fail protection | Application pools can be configured to protect the Web service from multiple consecutive failures by disabling the failing application.. |