Internet Information Server Settings

Both SharePoint Portal Server and the Web Storage System are exposed and accessed through IIS. It is important that you modify IIS to avoid creating a bottleneck. All traffic uses Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and IIS, whether originating from the client by using Web Folders or from the browser.

This section contains some general guidelines for optimizing IIS for the dashboard site.

Running the ASP-Engine In-Process

By default, IIS runs with medium application protection. This means that the ASP-engine is pooled and the ASP-applications are using the ASP-engine running outside of the IIS process. This requires significant performance overhead to marshal data and security contexts between processes.

To set the ASP-engine to run in-process with the IIS process:

1. In the Internet Services Manager, right-click the default Web site and select Properties from the right-click menu.
2. On the Properties page, click the Home Directory tab.
3. Change the Application Protection setting from Medium (Pooled) to Low (IIS Process). Figure 15.2 shows this setting changed to Low.

This modification makes it possible for malfunctioning Web Parts or scripts to take down the entire IIS process. It is recommended that you configure recovery options for the World Wide Web Publishing service to ensure that the process restarts properly if a failure occurs.

Figure 15.2. Changing the Application Protection setting

Adjusting the ASP Settings

The ASP-engine has several parameters that can be used to increase the performance and scalability of your dashboard site. The need to modify these parameters is determined by your hardware configuration and your assembled set of Web Parts. Closely observe the ASP Request Wait Time and ASP Requests Queued Performance Monitor counters to determine if you can remove any bottlenecks by optimizing the ASP-engine.

The following guidelines originate from KB-article Q253146.

AspProcessorThreadMax

The AspProcessorThreadMax metabase property specifies the maximum number of worker threads per processor that IIS creates. The setting can dramatically influence the scalability of your Web applications and the performance of your server in general. Because it defines the maximum number of ASP requests that can run simultaneously, this setting should remain at the default unless your ASP applications are making long-running calls to external components. By default, SharePoint Portal Server sets AspProcessorThreadMax to 25.

AspRequestQueueMax

The AspRequestQueueMax metabase property specifies the maximum number of concurrent ASP requests that are permitted into the queue. Any client browsers attempting to request ASP files when the queue is full are given an HTTP 500 "Server too busy" error message. By default, SharePoint Portal Server sets AspRequestQueueMax to 3,000.

AspQueueConnectionTestTime

IIS places all ASP requests into a queue. If IIS queues the request for longer than the number of seconds specified by the AspQueueConnectionTestTime metabase property, ASP checks to determine whether the client is still connected before it executes the request. If the client is no longer connected, the request is not processed and is deleted from the queue. You can use the AspQueueConnectionTestTime metabase property to make sure that IIS does not waste time processing a request that has been abandoned by the user. By default, SharePoint Portal Server sets AspQueueConnectionTestTime to 3.

AspScriptEngineCacheMax

The AspScriptEngineCacheMax property specifies the maximum number of scripting engines that ASP pages will keep cached in memory. By default, SharePoint Portal Server sets AspScriptEngineCacheMax to 125.

AspSessionTimeOut

The AspSessionTimeOut property specifies the default amount of time (in minutes) that SharePoint Portal Server maintains a session object after the last request associated with the object is made. You can use AspSessionTimeOut to optimize your ASP applications. Because session objects consume some memory resources, limiting the lifetime of an individual session with this property makes your applications more scalable. By default, SharePoint Portal Server sets AspSessionTimeOut to 20.

Modifying the metabase incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall IIS 5. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from incorrectly modifying the metabase can be resolved. Modify the metabase at your own risk.

Run the Adsutil.vbs utility from the %systemdrive%\inetpub\adminScripts folder. For example, to reconfigure the AspRequestQueueMax metabase property, type the following command:

 adsutil.vbs set w3svc/AspRequestQueueMax <NewValue>  

Where <NewValue> is the number of requests that ASP should use per processor.

For all entries, these settings change the value at the Master WWW Properties level. All new Web applications and all existing applications inherit these settings unless you explicitly set them at a different value.