Symantec Management Platform (Notification Server)

The Altiris Notification Server 6.x platform was coded using Microsoft's .NET platform and heavily relies upon ASP.NET for much of the functionality of the product. By tuning the default configuration of ASP.NET, a significant performance improvement can be gained on Altiris Notification Servers.

Note that the following recommendations and settings are referenced in Microsoft's online publications. More information can be found by visiting the following Microsoft MSDN web pages:

"Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability," Chapter 6, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998530.aspx

"Thread Pool Attributes" in Chapter 17, "Tuning .NET Application Performance." http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998583.aspx

To tune the ASP.NET software installed on the Notification Server, open the "C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322\Config\Machine.config file" in Microsoft Notepad or another text editor and apply the following changes:

1. Set maxconnection to 12 * # of CPUs. This setting controls the maximum number of outgoing HTTP connections that you can initiate from a client. In this case, ASP.NET is the client.
2. Set maxIoThreads to 100. This setting controls the maximum number of I/O threads in the .NET thread pool. This number is automatically multiplied by the number of available CPUs.
3. Set maxWorkerThreads to 100. This setting controls the maximum number of worker threads in the thread pool. This number is then automatically multiplied by the number of available CPUs.
4. Set minFreeThreads to 88 * # of CPUs. This setting is used by the worker process to queue all the incoming requests if the number of available threads in the thread pool falls below the value for this setting. This setting effectively limits the number of requests that can run concurrently to maxWorkerThreads - minFreeThreads. This limits the number of concurrent requests to 12 (assuming maxWorkerThreads is 100).
5. Set minLocalRequestFreeThreads to 76 * # of CPUs. This setting is used by the worker process to queue requests from localhost (where a Web application sends requests to a local Web service) if the number of available threads in the thread pool falls below this number. This setting is similar to minFreeThreads but it only applies to localhost requests from the local computer.

The following occurs if the formula has worked:

1. CPU utilization increases.
2. Throughput increases according to the ASP.NET Applications\Requests/Sec performance counter.
3. Requests in the application queue decrease according to the ASP.NET Applications/Requests In Application Queue performance counter.

Microsoft points out that while these settings provide a good baseline your company may need to revisit these values if the server experiences performance problems.

Table 6.1: Recommended Threading Settings for Reducing Contention