HOW TO: Tune Basic Performance Parameters after a UNIX-to-Windows Migration (324093)

SUMMARY

This article describes how to translate Apache performance controls to Internet Information Services (IIS) and how to take advantage of IIS-specific performance tuning parameters.

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Set Client Connection Limits

If you are using Apache, you can use the MaxClients directive to control the maximum number of simultaneous connections that are supported for the whole server, regardless of the number of sites that are being served by the Apache server. You can fine tune certain parameters, such as the minimum and maximum number of server processes and the number of threads (if you are using the threaded model). If you are using IIS, you can control the maximum number of simultaneous client connections for each specific Web site.

To set the maximum number of client connections:

1. Log on to the Web server computer as an administrator.
2. Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
3. Double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Internet Services Manager.
4. Right-click the Web site that you want to configure, and then click Properties.
5. Click the Web site tab.
6. If you want to support an unlimited number of connections, click Unlimited.
   
   NOTE: The number of connections is limited only by CPU or random access memory (RAM) limitations.
7. To set a specific number of connections, click Limited To, and then type the number of connections that you want the server to support (the default setting is 1000).
8. Click OK.

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Set Performance Parameters

If you use Apache, there is no simple method to "throttle" or limit the resources that are used by a single Web site. All of the Web sites on the server are given the same resources and priority, even if some of the Web sites are not used frequently or have a low priority. If you use IIS, you can control the overall performance based on the number of pages served each day, the network bandwidth that is available for the site, or the CPU time that is available for serving the site.

To set these parameters:

1. Log on to the Web server computer as an administrator.
2. Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
3. Double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Internet Services Manager.
4. Right-click the Web site that you want to configure in the left pane, and then click Properties.
5. Click the Performance tab.
6. Move the slider to the approximate number of pages you expect to serve each day.
7. To limit the bandwidth (transfer rate) for the Web site, click Enable Bandwidth Throttling, and then type a value for the maximum rate.
8. To limit the CPU usage for a site, click Enable Process Throttling.
9. If your Web site exceeds these values, an entry is logged to the Event Log. To enforce the limits so that processes are ended or new connections are refused until the current load is reduced, click Enforce Limits.
10. Click OK.

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