[Tech-Ed] WIN321 Running IIS Web Farms: Tips and Tricks
I attended WIN321 Running IIS Web Farms: Tips and Tricks Monday. The slides are online here [updated], but here are some high points:
Datacenter Overview
$4 million anual datacenter budget - pretty cheap for what
they do.
Doing less with more - consolidation, etc. -
same pressures most IT shops face.
Dogfooding
They use NLB heavily.
Content Management Server
for TechNet content
Sharepoint for search
AMD 64
Moving to AMD 64 for more real and
virtual memory
4GB RAM vs 2GB RAM - Immediate (ASP.NET
1.1 is 32 bit)
TB's of virtual memory in ASP.NET 2.0
(full 64 bit support)
Running 32 bit code on 64 bit
(WOW64) only 1% CPU overhead
Trial and Beta versions
available
WOW64 in W2K3 SP1
Data management
Significant amount of data -
100GB content, 2-5 GB changes daily
No fileshare -
files are local on box, boxes in farm are clones
Content
distributed by glorified RoboCopy
Server Build Process
VBS Batches (included in
slides)
Baseline - Initial OS / Webserver install
Site
Specific - Reg settings, etc., for site
Not using Ghost
/ imaging
Not using Web Gardens (per CPU instances)
IIS 6.0 App Pooling
Protect good apps by putting
in separate pool
Logical groupings of "bad apps" in app
pools
Resource Management
WSRM (Windows Server
Resource Management) for CPU management
App Pools for
memory management
Tips / Tricks (Many in IIS Resource Kit)
IISCNFG /EXPORT (Metabase Replication / Backup)
WFETCH
IISCERTDEPLOY.VBS
(push certs to servers without getting on each machine)
Metabase
Explorer - Migrate metabase from IIS 5 to IIS 6 by drag /
drop config from one instance to another
Logparser, Logparser,
Logparser!
PSEXEC (SysInternals)
Logparser / Netmon to detect SYN attacks
Replay
Weblogs with Logparser and Webcat
Hotfixes without reboots
Analyze Hotfix (INF
files, Tlist, Filemon) - determine processes that need to be
shut down
Run Hotfix inside a wrapper (Kill processes,
install hotfix, restart processes)
Tricky process,
tested thoroughly and roll out cautious and distributed
Hack defense
Crazy stats about number of hack
attempts per day
Using Logparser scripts that run every
15 minutes - near realtime log analysis
Hardware packet
filtering to drop bad packets before they hit webservers
Server Performance Advisor (W2K3)
Should be
released within a few weeks
HTML reports with all kinds
of goodies, uses ETW