IIS Performance issue

The normal issue that comes up with the web applications hosted on IIS is related to performance. Coincidentally I came across these issues recently in my area of work. I hope this information will help to those who face similar issues.

Here are the basic steps to do when faced with performance issues in web applications:

- Check if the process Aspnet_wp.exe (IIS 5.0) or W3wp process (IIS 6.0) is consuming high memory in the server.
- If the memory level is higher, then it may affect any other services or applications running on that server.
- In case, the requirement of the application requires more memory then upgrade your system to have higher memory to support the application
- Check the Web.Config file if the Debug, Trace or both are enabled. To accomplish this, ensure that the web application is deployed to production always in release mode.

compilation debug="false"

trace enabled="false"

- Check if the executionTimeOut attribute is set to higher level. This should not be set to higher level in production environment. This will hold on to the thread till it timeout and increase the level of memory usage.
- The performance can also be improved at the coding level by avoiding any string concatenation process and instead use the StringBuilder for the purpose.
- On the software installation, ensure that .NET framework 1.1 SP1 is installed.

Here are some additional tips for writing High – Performance Web applications
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163854.aspx