ASP.NET Core is an open source and cross-platform framework that runs on any operating system with or without an ASP.NET application pool (framework). It helps us develop and publish web-based applications independent of platforms such as macOS, Linux, or Windows Server Core. ASP.NET Core is also known as ASP.NET 5. Nano Server 2016 targets ASP.NET Core.

Once we start developing an ASP.NET Core application and publish it, it will automatically copy the all the required runtime DLLs and other files to the web application publish directory so that the core web application runs independently without requiring any framework on IIS Server.

ASP.NET 2.0 will not run on Nano.