Configure Web gardens in IIS 7 step by step

Introduction

“Web garden” scaling out by increasing the number of worker processes per CPU. Web gardening will allow more than two subscribers to synchronize at the same time. Before going to the details of web garden, I hope you have fundamental idea on application pool and worker process. Just for reminder - for request processing in IIS, worker process (w3wp.exe) runs the ASP.NET application in IIS. Worker process is responsible for handling all kinds of request, response, session data, and cache data. Application Pool is the container of worker process. Application pool is used to separate sets of IIS worker processes and enables a better security, reliability, and availability for any web application. It will also increase CPU utilization by replisapi.dll, which can negatively impact overall server performance. So, it is important to balance these considerations when you choose a value for Maximum Worker Processes.

Fig – Application pool is the container of one or more worker processes

Now, by default, each and every Application pool contains a single worker process. Application which contains the multiple worker process is called “Web Garden”. Below is the typical diagram for a web garden application.

Fig – Multiple worker process in an application pool (Web garden)

Why Web garden?

• Offering applications that are not CPU-bound but execute long running requests the ability to scale and not use up all threads available in the worker process
• Applications that make long running database requests (e.g. high computational database transaction)
• Applications that have threads occupied by long-running synchronous and network intensive transactions
• You can support a greater number of concurrent synchronization operations per CPU by increasing the Maximum Worker Process property value
• Provides better application availability by sharing request between multiple worker processes.
• Web garden use processor affinity where application can swapped out based on preference and tag setting.
• Less consumption of physical space for web garden configuration.

Configure Web garden in IIS 7

Step 1: Deploy and configure your web application as usual

Step 2: Modify web.config file

Find out the following line in web.config file.

<sessionState mode="InProc" timeout="60"></sessionState>

If the above line exists, remove the above line and replace following line.

<sessionState mode="StateServer" cookieless="false" timeout="30" stateConnectionString="tcpip=127.0.0.1:42424" />

Here tcpip = “127.0.0.1” is local state server IP and “42424” is the port number for state server.  You can use other IP as state server.

Step 3:  Modify registry by regedit

Run àregedtà HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINEàSYSTEMàCurrentControlSetàServicesàaspnet_stateàParameters

Step a: AllowRemoteConnection (Right Click)à Modify -> Set Value Data to 1 (Base Decimal) àOk

Step b: Port (Right Click)à Modify à Base Decimal àOk

Step 4: Run asp.net state service

Check the following step:

Runà controlà Administrative Toolsà Servicesà ASP.NET State Service (Right Click)à Properties

Step a:  Startup Typeà Automatic

Step b:  Service Statusà start

Finally Click Ok.

Step 5: Create an application pool

Create a different application pool for safety. If you use a separate application pool, it will be easy to manage. You can use default application pool also.

To create an application pool that runs using a custom service account

1.       Start Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.  (Run->inetmgr)

2.       In the left pane, expand the local computer and then select Application Pools.

3.       Right-click the Application Pools node, clicks Add Application Pool, and then clicks Application Pool.

4.       In the Add Application Pool dialog box, type “Pool Name” in the name text box. In figure Pool name is Bluechipplus. Select .NET Framework version. In figure, I select 4.0.30319. Select Managed pipeline mode. I select integrated mode. Selection of framework version and managed pipeline mode depends on your application which you are going to hosted. Click OK to complete application pool creation.

5.       Now select application pools. You will see newly created Bluechipplus application pool in the middle panel.

 

Step 6: Configure application pool

1           1.   Select newly created “Bluechipplus” application pool in the middle panel.

2.      Click Advanced Settings in “Edit Application Pool” section in the right panel. A dialogue box will appear named “Advanced Settings”

3.   In Process Model section, select identity. Network service is default and recommended. If you find problem, you should change. In figure Local service is selected.

4.    In Process Model section, type maximum worker process. In figure 12 maximum worker processes selected. Selecting worker process is actually depends on your server capability and memory.

5.     In Recycling section, select private memory limit in KB. In figure 200000 is selected. Consider your server memory before considering memory limit.

6.       Finally click OK to complete application pool settings.

Step 7: Select application pool for the application

1.       Right click on application in IIS->Manage Application -> Advanced Settings

2. From advanced settings dialogue box -> Browse application pool -> Select application pool

 

3. Finally click OK after assigning application pool

Now you have completed web garden for your application. Browse your application and cheers!!!

 

Recovering SQL Server Database from Suspect Mode

Sometimes we have to face a critical situation when SQL Server database going to Suspect Mode. In that moment no work can be done on database. Database may go into suspect mode because the primary file group is damaged and the database cannot be recovered during the startup of the SQL Server

Reason for database to go into suspect mode:

1.    Data files or log files are corrupt.

2.    Database server was shut down improperly

3.    Lack of Disk Space

4.    SQL cannot complete a rollback or roll forward operation.

How to recover database from suspect mode:

1.    Change the status of your database. Suppose database name is “BluechipDB”

          EXEC sp_resetstatus '';

            Example: EXEC sp_resetstatus 'BlueChipDB'

2. Set the database in “Emergency” mode

ALTER DATABASE <Database Name> SET EMERGENCY;

Example: ALTER DATABASE BlueChipDB SET EMERGENCY

3. Check the database for any inconsistency

DBCC CHECKDB('');

Example: DBCC checkdb('BlueChipDB')

4. If you get any error after executing DBCC CHECKDB then immediately bring the database in SINGLE USER MODE by running following query. If no error found then you need not execute the following query.

ALTER DATABASE <Database Name> SET SINGLE_USER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE;

Example: ALTER DATABASE BlueChipDB SET SINGLE_USER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE

5. For safety, take the backup of the database.

6. Run the following query as next step. Remember while using the below query, that uses REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS, is a one way operation that is once the database is repaired all the actions performed by these queries can’t be undone. There is no way to go back to the previous state of the database. So as a precautionary step you should take backup of your database in step 5 mentioned above.

DBCC CHECKDB ('', REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS);

Example: DBCC CheckDB ('BlueChipDB', REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS)

7. Finally, bring the database in MULTI USER mode

ALTER DATABASE <Database Name> SET MULTI_USER;

ALTER DATABASE [BlueChipDB]  SET MULTI_USER

8. Refresh your database server and verify the connectivity of your database. Now users should be able to connect to the database properly. If any data loss, you can restore database – backup taken in step 5.