Tag Archives: performance

Performance: Hyper-threading actually does boost server capacity

Posted on January 24, 2011 by jrothmanshore

We recently noticed some odd behavior with one of our servers during a deployment.  Several machines were removed from the traffic pool to receive updates, and during this time, the other machines were shouldering the extra load.  We have significant … Continue reading →

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Performance: Query the sqlserver plan cache to find queries that use a particular index

Posted on January 18, 2011 by jrothmanshore

Part of keeping a SQL Server database running smoothly is to keep indexes well tuned. As database schemas or usage change, indexes that were once important may fall out of use. Eliminating unnecessary indexes helps speed up inserts/updates/deletes, and it … Continue reading →

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Performance: An awk script for computing 95th percentile times straight from web log files (IIS, Tomcat)

Posted on December 28, 2010 by jrothmanshore

When analyzing performance, looking at 95th percentile response times is one of the most useful metrics.  While the average can be a good indicator, it can be heavily skewed by lots of small requests or a few extremely long ones.  … Continue reading →

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Performance Tuning: Clear hidden form variables to avoid unnecessarily large post backs #browser #html #javascript

Posted on December 17, 2010 by jrothmanshore

To create rich web applications, it is fairly common to encode data in JSON on the server and then manipulate it using javascript on the client.  For example, when creating a rich Datatable in YUI, rather than rendering the data … Continue reading →

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Performance Tuning: Visualize your web log performance data using Excel scatter plots

Posted on December 7, 2010 by jrothmanshore

I’ve written previously about how to turn on time-taken values in web logs for IIS, Tomcat, and Apache.  Armed with time-taken data, you can identify which are the slow pages in your system and decide where to focus your performance … Continue reading →

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Comcast / Level 3 network peering dispute exposes failures in a private market internet

Posted on November 30, 2010 by jrothmanshore

Comcast is threatening to cut off Netflix streaming unless an Internet backbone provider, Level 3, agrees to pay it money.  Comcast is quickly turning into the poster boy for Network Neutrality, and in the process, it is highlighting the inefficiencies … Continue reading →

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Recent ASP.NET security patch KB2416471 can break CompositeScript elements

Posted on November 24, 2010 by jrothmanshore

Microsoft released a patch (KB2416471) to fix a security vulnerability where a malicious party could use errors generated in the application to decrypt the data used in certain requests.  In theory, the fix should not require changes in the application. … Continue reading →

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Performance Tuning Tip: Turn on time-taken in your web logs (IIS, Apache, Tomcat) to identify performance hot spots

Posted on November 19, 2010 by jrothmanshore

Everyone knows that the web logs generated by web servers like IIS, Apache, and Tomcat (JBOSS / Catalina) are a well-known goldmine of information.  They allow you to track site usage, find content errors, gather browser statistics, and all sorts … Continue reading →

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The DNS Challenges of Using Akamai Sites for Global Corporations

Posted on November 16, 2010 by jrothmanshore

Akamai’s web application accelerator product has been a tremendous benefit for our global operations.  Using their tools, we have observed a 400% performance boost between the United States and Asia versus accessing our site over “public” internet.  The benefits come … Continue reading →

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