Question

Why is it that every time the server goes down, and asp.net restarts, the response time is SUPER FAST when it comes back up for a few minutes. I assume because everyone is off the server and I am one of the few (or only) people back on the server so quick?

I have discussed this with our developers and they say the response time is due to everyone on the server normally (200+ desktops) and when you are the only person on there, it flys. Really? Then does that mean we need newer, faster web servers?

I am not a programmer, but I think there may be two answers, one is what the devs say above is true, and two is the system is accumulating temp files of some sort and they get cleared out when the server crashes and then restarts.

How do we prove who might be right? Where does one start to look for asp.net bottlenecks?

windows server 2003
asp.net 3.0
iis6
12GB ram

sql server 2005 (db admin says there is no load issue on sql..)

Answer 1

Some very basic steps that you can follow and check if your server work on limits are:

First you download the Process Explorer from sysinternals and you run it to see two things.

• Is your server work on their memory limit ?

If yes then what program eats the memory, usually SQL Server 2005 use a lot of memory for database cache, and this is done after many time of work.

• Did the server use all of his computing power, if yes, check what program is the one that need all that computing power.

Now next step, download the TCPView from sysinternals, run it and see how many connections are done, how fast, etc… There you can see anomalies, or if the computer is also on their limit.

Final step is to defrag your disks.

Also have in mine that the asp.net session is lock the entire view on all users. So if you have one application on web, with too many users, and each user, or some users, make long time processing on their calls, then this can cause delay to all the users.