The Management API

There's no doubt that the Web Administration Tool is a great utility to help administer an application, but some administrative tasks either aren't suited to a Web interface or need to be run before the application is created (or as part of the application).

ASP.NET 2.0 provides a comprehensive Management API, which allows complete manipulation of the XML configuration files as well as integration with IIS. In particular, the following configuration tasks are supported.

• View configuration data merged from all levels of an application hierarchy.

• Allow configuration changes to specific configuration files.

• Import and export configuration sections.

• Create new configuration sections.

These features allow you to set up and configure not only local machines but also remote machines.