Configuring a Request Queue Limit

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

When an application pool receives requests faster than it can handle them, the unprocessed requests might consume all of the memory on the server, slowing the server and preventing other application pools from processing requests. This can happen when the queue size limit for the requests is large and legitimate requests are coming in at a rapid rate, or during a denial of service attack.

To prevent requests from consuming all the memory for an application pool, limit the size of the request queue for the application pool. To monitor and manage CPU consumption, you must enable CPU monitoring, gather data on CPU usage, and reduce the request queue limit when CPU consumption exceeds the specified limit.

For example, if you have a Web server that is capable of processing 10,000 requests per minute, and you have an application that can queue up 5,000 requests within that period of time, the application consumes 50 percent of the capacity of the server. You can configure IIS 6.0 to limit the number of requests to 2,000, reducing the potential memory consumption of the application and reducing the Web server capacity used by the application to 20 percent.

By default, request queue limit is enabled in IIS 6.0, and the default value is 1,000 requests. When resetting the default value, remember that a value that is too high can prevent other applications from having an equal share of the server resources and a value that is too low can cause the server to return 503 errors, or a disruption of service for the clients.

For information about how to configure a request queue limit by using IIS Manager, see Configure Application Pool Performance. For information about how to configure a request queue limit by using a command-line procedure or scripts, see the AppPoolQueueLength Metabase Property.

Managing ASP.NET and Request Queue Limit

Recycling worker processes that are serving ASP.NET applications requires that you restart under a request processing load. Starting the new worker processes under a load might cause requests to be rejected because the queue is too full. When this occurs, either increase the queue size limit or disable recycling.

For more information about ASP.NET–specific considerations for applications, see Deploying ASP.NET Applications in IIS 6.0.