ASP.NET Application Performance Tips

By applying these general solutions, we can gain significant performance improvement. Then we can do page specific optimization to improve speed further.


• Turn on IIS Gzip compression. http://msmvps.com/blogs/omar/archive/2006/08/10/iis-6-compression-quickest-and-effective-way-to-do-it-for-asp-net-compression.aspx
• Turn on IIS Static file expiration: http://msmvps.com/blogs/omar/archive/2007/11/29/making-best-use-of-cache-for-high-performance-website.aspx
• Defer JS loading after visible content for faster perceived speed and combine multiple JS into one: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/fastload.aspx
• Apply these 10 techniques for better server and client speed: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/10ASPNetPerformance.aspx
• Combine small CSS into one common CSS. Ensure one page links to maximum two or three CSS.
• Use CSS Sprite technique to combine multiple icons into one sprite. You can get significant site load performance improvement by using this technique. http://css-tricks.com/css-sprites-what-they-are-why-theyre-cool-and-how-to-use-them/
• Use YUI Compressor to minify CSS files after you deploy on production. It will significantly reduce CSS file size.
• Use YUI Compressor to minify JS files after you deploy on production. It will significantly reduce JS file size.
• Improve hardware on server:
o Add more RAM – at least 4 GB
o Add more CPU – at least Dual Core Xeon
o Add better disk – must be SCSI 15K RPM
o Split database into two physical disks – MDF in one disk and LDF in another disk
•Trim whitespace from ASP.NET pages
•Use JQuery for its lightness instead of MS Ajax