Asp Performance Tips

Using ASP on a busy server? Finding that it can't cope? Try our tips for making everything run faster, smoother and altogether more froody.

Performance goals vary from application to application. You should set your

goals to correspond with your expected user traffic. In general, you should

aim for 20 pages or more per second with less than 30 percent CPU

utilization, and response times of 10 seconds or less.

• Retrieving values from collections is relatively slow. Store retrieved
  values in local variables if you need to access them more than once.

• Avoid using server-side #include directives to include large lists of
  constants.

• Use the new <METADATA> tag to import type-library constants into
  global.asa.

• Avoid using Server.CreateObject. Use <OBJECT> tags instead.

• Group multiple Response.Write statements, and delimit them with one set of
  <% %> delimiters.

• Avoid redimensioning VBScript arrays.

• Use only one scripting language per page.

• Buffered responses (Response.Buffer=True) are faster than unbuffered ones
  (although they can appear less responsive).

• Use Response.IsClientConnected during the processing of long scripts. This
  property determines if the client has disconnected from the server since the
  last Response.Write, and improves application responsiveness during times of
  peak usage.

• Use components to encapsulate business logic rather than complex script.
  Convert dynamic ASP output to static HTML using the ASP2HTM component
  wherever possible. (ASP2HTM is included on the Internet Information Server
  (IIS) Resource Kit CD.)

• Store commonly requested, unchanging content in memory using an
  application-scope Dictionary object.
  Avoid using Session_OnEnd event procedures, if possible.

• Disable the Session object on a page-by-page basis with the <%@
  EnableSessionState=False %> statement. This declarative allows ASP to
  process scripts concurrently, rather than sequentially.

• Write client scripts that don't require roundtrips to the server. Distribute
  work to the client, such as form input validation. Use the Browser
  Capabilities component (MSWC.BrowserType) and customize client-side scripts
  to take advantage of the browser, incorporating such technologies as DHTML,
  client-side script, and ActiveX? controls.

• Focus your optimization efforts on the most common paths through your site
  or application. You can determine user behavior with IIS service logs and
  the Usage Import and Report Writer component of Site Server Express.

• Set Response.Expires appropriately so that proxy servers can intelligently
  cache information that doesn't change often.

• Optimize the use of ADO Connection objects, with ODBC connection pooling and
  stored procedures.

• Measure system performance with tools such as Task Manager, NetMon, and
  PerfMon. Measure Web capacity with WCAT. Profile portions of your ASP script
  with the ASP Tracer component. For more information see the IIS Resource
  Kit.

• Try to keep one ASP page to One application.
  Use SQL stored procedures wherever possible.

These tips are culled from MSDN, where there may be even more.