[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