For customer facing Siebel applications you need to host the offline page when the application is down and you’re fixing issues or doing recycles. Your customers may get annoyed by seeing the message like “The server you are trying to access is either busy or experiencing difficulties. Please close the Web browser, open a new browser window, and try logging in again. [16:18:44] “to avoid this you need to host an offline page.
 
This can be achieved in various ways in IIS server-

1. URL Redirect
2. using web.config
3. using default.htm
4. using IIS Rewrite module

 
In this article we will discuss how to host offline page using IIS Rewrite module. (Use site search to locate other methods in directutor.com)
 
Steps to achieving the offline or Maintenance page:

1. Create an offiline.htm page and host it in IIS.
2. Install iis rewrite module
3. Create Re Write Rule

1. Create offline page: Using any standard HTML editor create a html page with message you want to display when site is offline for maintenance.
2. Download and  install IIS rewrite module :
   
   1. Download the x86 version of the URL Rewrite module
   2. Download the x64 version of the URL Rewrite module

3. Create ReWrite Rules:
   
   1. Open IIS manager
   2. In the Features View, double click on “URL Rewrite”
   3. In the actions pane, click “add rule” link, it will open up a form called “Inbound Rules”
   4. In Name enter “Site Offline Rule”
   5. In the “Match URL” Section
   6. Select “Match the pattern” from “Requested URL” drop down
   7. In the “Pattern” field enter “your url to be redirected
   8. Check “Ignore Case” check box
   9. In the “Action” Section set the “Redirect URL” to offline page url
   10. Set Redirect type to “Temporary (307)”
   11. Click “Apply” in the action pane.

 
 
Video walkthrough
·                Using the URL rewrite module - video walkthrough