I got a problem with a system running on ASP.NET 1.1. It’s a topic right now, but actually it’s a recurring issue: Sometimes, the system will become extremely slow, and I wonder if there’s a tool to find out what’s going on. I know that sounds vague, but that’s exactly what my problem is about.
The thing is, I can time of course my scripts as soon as the page has started loading. However, the issues seem to take place before the page code starts – the delay is in the start of processing the page. This renders me blind with respect to coding anything to detect what’s going on.
So, can someone help me out with an idea of how to track system resources independently of page calls being served? As I’m writing this, I realize I don’t even know which resources I’m looking for exactly, so any info on that would be great, too!
Some background info:
- System is live 500-1000 unique visitors per day and around 5000 hits on the main (database-heavy) website
- Performance drops seem to occur independently of traffic
- As said, system is running on ASP.NET 1.1. Upgrading may be an option, but any info on whether such issues can be expected to improve with such an upgrade would be greatly appreciated (I’m aware it’s hard to tell what the issue is, so this is more of a side question)
- System has an Access backend for historic reasons. I know this can be a problem, but again, the question would be, how can I quantify that if the delay isn’t coming from the actual queries?
There are tools for profiling ASP.NET applications, however, I doubt they still support .NET 1.1. See Profiling tools for .NET for a list – maybe one of them still has a version that supports .NET 1.1.