Using IIS 5.0 to adjust the Web server's art and science--1

Brief introduction
Microsoft Windows Server's Internet information Services (IIS) 5.0 enables your WEB server to provide performance enhancements and higher availability. With tighter integration between the operating system and IIS, you can now adjust the server so that it executes faster and more efficiently than previous versions.
This file is designed for Web server administrators who are responsible for monitoring and adjusting the Web sites that are executed on Windows 2000 and IIS. Although it covers some discussion of Web application testing and tuning, the main reader of this file does not include Web application developers.
This document discusses ways to tune Web server performance. It also discusses why tuning performance is important, as well as discussing hardware, software, and test issues that can be involved in tuning IIS 5.0 Web servers. Finally, it includes a brief discussion of tools that you can use to monitor and test server performance. While one of the discussions is related to the problems that can occur when tuning a network application, the document does not delve into the issue. For links and references to this topic or other topics, please refer to the Resources section of this document.
Use performance tuning as an art
You can adjust server performance as much as a Web site on the Internet. Depending on how your company wants to render your choices on the Web, you may have to be responsible for adjusting your Web server to an application page that is best suited to providing static Web pages or dynamic compilation. Each site has different hardware, application requirements, and Windows 2000 and IIS Performance tuning options. Another consideration is the amount of traffic you actually want the network to process, especially during peak load periods. The amount of load affects the performance of the Web server, and different business activities, such as the frequency of your company's campaigns, determine the number of user requests that your site must handle. You should know the contents of these loads clearly and emulate them on the network before you let them go online. There are a couple of reasons why there is no such thing as a little advice on how to adjust a Web server.
Tuning Web server performance should be seen as an art, not a science: trying and making mistakes is an important way to determine what settings and hardware are best suited to your site's needs. While it is important to understand the technical settings discussed in this article, it is equally important to understand the settings files for your application or Web site and how they will work in different states. Like a painter using charcoal to draw a simple picture of how he wants to complete a painting, you should also have a plan to evaluate the performance of your Web server. The first step is to establish a controlled environment on the Web site you want to test, perform a performance analysis of the predictive load, and then measure performance in that environment before you let the WEB server publish on the Internet. Because the performance of the server can vary significantly by the amount of browser traffic that accesses your site during different periods of time, be sure to observe and record your site tests under different loads to get a real picture of the activity on the network. During this time, you may want to have a backup plan to prevent your site from being shut down for any problems before and after deployment.