Ultra-Fast ASP.NET: Build Ultra-Fast and Ultra-Scalable web sites using ASP.NET and SQL Server (Paperback)

Ultra-Fast ASP.NET presents a practical approach to building fast and scalable web sites using ASP.NET and SQL Server. In addition to a wealth of tips, tricks and secrets, you'll find advice and code examples for all tiers of your application, including the client, caching, IIS 7, ASP.NET, threads, session state, SQL Server, Analysis Services, infrastructure and operations. By applying the ultra-fast approach to your projects, you’ll squeeze every last ounce of performance out of your code and infrastructure—giving your site unrivaled speed.

The approach is mostly prescriptive; rather than drowning you in options, the book presents and explains specific high-impact recommendations and demonstrates them with detailed examples. Using this knowledge, you will soon be building high-performance web sites that scale easily as your site grows.

What you’ll learn

• A way of thinking about performance issues that will help you obtain real results.
• How to apply key principles that will help you build ultra-fast and ultra-scalable web sites.
• How to use the ultra-fast approach to be fast in multiple dimensions. You’ll have not only fast pages but also fast changes, fast fixes, fast deployments and more.
• Techniques that are being used by some of the world's largest web sites.
• How to structure your HTML and CSS to create pages that load ultra-fast.
• Tips for using Silverlight, Ajax and IIS 7 to improve the performance of your site.
• How to use comprehensive caching at all tiers to deliver content faster.
• Why you should avoid traditional session state and how to make the best use of cookies.
• Tips and tricks for optimizing your ASP.NET and SQL Server code for performance and scalability.
• How to use Analysis Services to offload your relational database.
• Why many sites that serve individual pages quickly are not scalable.
• How to avoid common pitfalls that can have an adverse impact on your site’s performance, both now and as it grows.
• How to apply an end-to-end systems-based approach to web site performance and scalability, which includes everything from the browser and the network to caching, back-end operations, hardware infrastructure, and your software development process.

Who is this book for?

This book will be useful for intermediate to advanced developers and architects who want to improve the performance of their ASP.NET-based web sites. Some knowledge of ASP.NET, SQL Server, and IIS is assumed. Example code is provided in C#. Experienced web developers who have recently moved from Java or PHP to .NET will find lots of valuable and interesting information.

This book will also be useful for non-developers who have a technical interest in what makes a web site fast. In particular, if you’re involved with web site operations, testing, or management, you will discover many of the principals and issues that your development teams should be addressing, along with demonstrations that help drive the points home.

Rick Kiessig has been doing software design and development for more than 30 years. He is currently an independent software consultant who focuses on architecting and building large-scale websites using .NET and SQL Server. His clients have included companies such as MySpace, Shop.com, Microsoft and the Hong Kong Jockey Club. Before that, he worked at Microsoft for four years, first as an architect and developer in MSN, and later at the Microsoft Technology Center (MTC). His experience at the MTC included leading weekly two to three day long Architectural Design Sessions with some of Microsoft’s largest customers, to help them design and improve the architectures of their websites and other software. Before coming to Microsoft, Rick worked as an independent consultant in Silicon Valley for more than 20 years. Projects included designing and building a large-scale Java-based Content Management System and architecting systems to deliver web content to millions of Interactive TV subscribers. He has also developed mission-critical real-time software for spacecraft that have flown to Mars several times, to the Moon and to a nearby comet. Rick has been an Internet user and developer since 1974. He is married, has twin boys, and moved from California to New Zealand in 2006, where he now resides. His hobbies include amateur radio; his call sign is ZL2HAM.