Tuning Production Servers

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Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 with SP1

Contoso best practices mandate that each server be configured for optimum performance and scalability before the server is put into production. These best practices specifically target disk setup, services running on the server by default, network setup, and caches.

Use RAID

To begin with, the administrators set up the site content on a redundant array of independent disks (RAID). RAID is a data storage method in which data — along with information used for error correction, such as parity bits — is distributed among two or more hard disk drives to improve performance and reliability. For information about setting up RAID, see Help and Support Center for Windows Server 2003.

If using RAID is not an option, consider moving the site content to a disk other than the system disk (that is, the disk on which the operating system is installed). By storing your site content on a disk other than the system disk, you reduce contention for disk access between the operating system and the Web sites. This further increases performance.

Delete unused default documents

The administrators knew that if a user tried to access the Web site by using a trailing slash — for example, https://www.contoso.com/website/ — the server would read each item listed in the default document list (such as Default.htm, Default.asp, and Index.htm) and perform a search to see if each document existed. As a best practice, the administrators deleted all the documents in the default document list that do not exist. They left only the default document that does exist — for Contoso, this is Default.aspx. You can delete unnecessary default documents by using IIS Manager to modify the Documents tab on the Web Sites property pages.

Shut down unused services

To conserve memory and CPU resources for the Web service, the administrators shut down unnecessary services. The server will host only the Contoso Web application, so the administrators stopped other IIS services such as the FTP, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), and Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) services. Using the Services snap-in, the administrators stopped the Automatic Updates, Task Scheduler, Wireless Configuration, and Print Spooler services (because they would not be printing from that server).

Important

Refer to Help and Support Center for Windows Server2003 to ensure that you understand the role of each service before you stop it. Monitor performance after stopping each service to ensure that the change does not negatively affect performance.

Change file and printer sharing defaults

The administrators changed the default File and Printer Sharing for Network properties from Maximize data throughput for file sharing to Maximize data throughput for network applications. This small change resulted in a 10 percent increase in throughput. For information about how to change these properties, see To configure File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks.

For more information about performance tuning, see Optimizing IIS 6.0 Performance.