Question

I am writing test harness to test a HTTP Post. Test case would send 8 http request using UploadValuesAsync in webclient class in 10 seconds interval. It sleeps 10 seconds after every 8 request. I am recording start time and end time of each request. When I compute the average response time. I am getting around 800 ms. But when I run this test case synchronously using UploadValues method in web client I am getting average response time 250 milliseconds. Can you tell me why is difference between these two methods? I was expecting the less response time in Aync but I did not get that.

Here is code that sends 8 requests async

                       var count = 0;
        foreach (var nameValueCollection in requestCollections)
        {
            count++;
            NameValueCollection collection = nameValueCollection;
            PostToURL(collection,uri);
            if (count % 8 == 0)
            {
                Thread.Sleep(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10));
                count = 0;
            }
        }

UPDATED
Here is code that sends 8 requests SYNC

public void PostToURLSync(NameValueCollection collection,Uri uri)
    {
        var response = new ServiceResponse
        {
            Response = "Not Started",
            Request = string.Join(";", collection.Cast<string>()
                                        .Select(col => String.Concat(col, "=", collection[col])).ToArray()),
            ApplicationId = collection["ApplicationId"]

        };

        try
        {
            using (var transportType2 = new DerivedWebClient())
            {
                transportType2.Expect100Continue = false;
                transportType2.Timeout = TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(2000);
                response.StartTime = DateTime.Now;
                var responeByte = transportType2.UploadValues(uri, "POST", collection);
                response.EndTime = DateTime.Now;
                response.Response = Encoding.Default.GetString(responeByte);
            }

        }
        catch (Exception exception)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(exception.ToString());
        }
        response.ResponseInMs = (int)response.EndTime.Subtract(response.StartTime).TotalMilliseconds;
        responses.Add(response);
        Console.WriteLine(response.ResponseInMs);
    }

Here is the code that post to the HTTP URI

public void PostToURL(NameValueCollection collection,Uri uri)
    {
        var response = new ServiceResponse
                        {
                            Response = "Not Started",
                            Request = string.Join(";", collection.Cast<string>()
                                                        .Select(col => String.Concat(col, "=", collection[col])).ToArray()),
                            ApplicationId = collection["ApplicationId"]

                        };

        try
        {
            using (var transportType2 = new DerivedWebClient())
            {
                transportType2.Expect100Continue = false;
                transportType2.Timeout = TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(2000);
                response.StartTime = DateTime.Now;
                transportType2.UploadValuesCompleted += new UploadValuesCompletedEventHandler(transportType2_UploadValuesCompleted);
                transportType2.UploadValuesAsync(uri, "POST", collection,response);
            }
        }
        catch (Exception exception)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(exception.ToString());
        }
    }

Here is the upload completed event

    private void transportType2_UploadValuesCompleted(object sender, UploadValuesCompletedEventArgs e)
    {
        var now = DateTime.Now;
        var response = (ServiceResponse)e.UserState;
        response.EndTime = now;
        response.ResponseInMs = (int) response.EndTime.Subtract(response.StartTime).TotalMilliseconds;
        Console.WriteLine(response.ResponseInMs);

        if (e.Error != null)
        {
            response.Response = e.Error.ToString();
        }
        else
        if (e.Result != null && e.Result.Length > 0)
        {
            string downloadedData = Encoding.Default.GetString(e.Result);
            response.Response = downloadedData;
        }
        //Recording response in Global variable
        responses.Add(response);
    }

Answer 1

As Justin said, I tried ServicePointManager.DefaultConnectionLimit but that did not fix the issue. I could not able reproduce other problems suggested by Justin. I am not sure how to reproduce them in first place.

What I did, I ran the same piece of code in peer machine that runs perfectly response time that I expected. The difference between the two machines is operating systems. Mine is running on Windows Server 2003 and other machine is running on Windows Server 2008.

As it worked on the other machines, I suspect that it might be one of the problem specified by Justin or could be server settings on 2003 or something else. I did not spend much time after that to dig this issue. As this is a test harness that we had low priority on this issue. We left off with no time further.

As I have no glue on what exactly fixed it, I am not accepting any answer other than this. Becuase at very least I know that switching to server 2008 fixed this issue.