I was preparing myself for a customer meeting, focusing on performance in EPiServer CMS 5. I got some interesting figures out of the test that could be of interest. Without the HTML Cache, the site was able to deliver 40-50 hps (hits per second), with the Html Cache it could handle 200 hps!!!

The database only contained 339 pages and the site was clean and simple. The result though, still gives a hint of the power in EPiServer CMS 5.

Without Http Cache - 45 hps

The Http Cache was turned of in web.config - httpCacheExpiration="00:00:00". The load was raised until the CPU almost went up to 100% (3 connections, 35 ms delay). Part of the load of the processor is though the Test Tool by itself (approximately 5%) so in this test the CPU was running at 90-95%.

The site was then able to deliver 40-50 hps with aspx-pages that was delivered by the .NET-engine. Page Data was of cause read from the EPiServer Page Cache so the database was not loaded at all.

With the Http Cache - 200 hps

The Http Cache was turned on in web.config - httpCacheExpiration="01:00:00". The load was raised until the CPU almost went up to 100% (9 connections, 35 ms delay). Approximately 5% of the load came from the Test Tool so in this test the CPU was running at 90-95%.

The site was now able to deliver 200 hps with Cached aspx-pages (not delivered by the .NET-engine).

About the Http Cache

In most cases the Http Cache can be turned on but some pages might need to be excluded because of features on the page (e.g. Post backs). The performance goes up enormously when using the Http Cache so it is worth putting some efforts in activating it.

The Test Script

The vbs test script performs an anonymous HttpGet on three pages.

1. "/"

2. "/en/Examples/"

3. "/en/Examples/Contact/"

Images, css-files and other resources were not accessed even though they could have impact on the overall performance depending on what EPiServer File System the customer uses.

A delay of 35 ms was put in between each page access in the script to make it easier to get a balanced load that maximized the load of the CPU.

Hardware and software specifications

IBM T43 (Intel Pentium M Processor 2.00 GHz, 2 GByte RAM) with XP Professional SP 1

EPiServer CMS 5.1.422.2 with Production Package, 339 Pages in database

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (SQLEXPRESS) 9.2.3042.00

Microsoft Application Center Test 1.0.536.0