SharePoint TechCon 2009 - 602

602: INTO THE WILD
THE CHALLENGES OF CUSTOMIZED
SHAREPOINT APPS IN RELEASE

SPTechCon
2009-01-29, dynaTrace software Inc
Andreas Grabner, andreas.grabner@dynatrace.com
Technology Strategist

Agenda

This class will examine the real-world challenges of
customized SharePoint applications when they are
released “into the wild.” We will consider why such
applications almost always work on the developer's
machine—and why they often fail in production. Web
parts and lists are the main focus in this advanced
class

© 2008 dynaTrace software GmbH
LOTS OF DEMOS!!

2 2

Why do we end up with performance problems?

TOO MUCH data is requested
Data is REQUESTED in an INEFFICIENT way
INEFFICIENT use of RESOURCES
INEFFICIENT data RENDERING
NEVER TESTED with REAL WORLD data

NEVER TESTED UNDER LOAD

3 3


SharePoint Lists
• Only display the data that the user really needs to see
• Limit the number of rows that are displayed in the ListWebPart
• Use Views to limit the number of columns that are displayed
• Use alternative WebParts
• Sometimes the ListWebView is not the right way to go
• Check the size of returned html page
• Consider the overhead on the network/browser rendering time

4 4


Optimize Lists based on Usage
• Analyze Usage of Lists & Views and optimize on slowest
performing
Analyze usage and performance of all lists in SharePoint Analyze usage and performance of all views in SharePoint

5 5


Custom Web Parts
• Accessing Data via SharePoint Object Model
• Understand what is going on when accessing Data via API
• Use SPQuery‘s to access only the data you need to display
• Cache Data
• Think about caching data that doesn‘t change frequently

Analyze where WebParts spend their time and how they access the data Analyze where most of the time is spent

6 6


DEMO
How to analyze current list usage behavior?
How to analyze WebPart data access?
Comparing Performance Impact when changing Views

7 7


SharePoint Object Model
• DO NOT iterate through all items in the list
• DO NOT access the Items property multiple times
• AVOID using the Count property
• Use CAML Queries and SPQuery‘s to select certain data
SPQuery‘
• Use the RowLimit and ListItemCollectionPosition Feature of SPQuery

Example: Query the Product Name of a certain Product identified by the Product ID
DO NOT
String productName = productList.Items.GetItemById(“1234“)[“ProductName“].ToString();

DO
String productName = productList. GetItemById(“1234“)[“ProductName“].ToString();

or DO
SPQuery query = new SPQuery();
query.Query = "<Where><Eq><FieldRef Name='ID'/><Value Type='Text'>1234</Value></Eq></Where>";
String productName = productList.GetItems(query)[0][“ProductName“].ToString();
DO BEST
query.ViewFields = “<FieldRef Name=‘ProductName‘/>“;
8 8


DEMO
Whats going on „under the hood“ when using the
SharePoint Object Model?
How to improve SharePoint Data Access?

9 9


SharePoint Object Model
• SPSite and SPWeb hold references to native COM objects
• Release SPSite & SPWeb in order to free native resources
• Querying too much data results in high memory usage
Reference
• SPDisposeCheck tool
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/11/12/an
nouncing-spdisposecheck-tool-for-sharepoint-
developers.aspx

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb687949.aspx
• http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/aa973248.aspx#sharepointobjmodel_otherobject
sthatrequire-disposal

10 10


Monitor resources
• Monitor Memory
• Monitor Database connections
• Monitor „critical“ SharePoint objects (SPSite, SPWeb)
• Identify leaking responsible WebParts

Identify „leaking“ object instances
Monitor SharePoint Memory -> Growing Heap?

Identify who allocates those objects

11 11


DEMO
How to identify a SPSite/SPWeb Resource Leak?
How to identify resource intensive WebParts?
How to monitor SharePoint Memory Issues down to

the Object Model‘s Data Access classes?

12 12


How to render data
• StringBuilder vs. String concatenations
• Use HtmlTextWriter for custom WebParts

How to access data
• Follow the rules discussed earlier

Size matters
• Minimize generated HTML

• Use style sheets instead of inline style definitions
• Enable content compression in IIS
• http://planetmoss.blogspot.com/2007/06/dont-forget-iis-
compression-colleague.html

13 13


Steps to do
• Analyze slow pages with tools like YSlow
• Analyze network infrastructure. Compare server side times
vs. Client side times
Analyze Page Size Statistics Analyze individual page objects

14 14

NEVER TESTED with REAL WORLD data

Importance of Test Data
• 10 records in a table are not enough
• Invest time to generate Test Data
• „Random“ data is good -> „Realistic“ data is best
• Test Data must be used by developers
• Many data access problems can be identified on the developers
machine with appropriate test data
Problems that can be identified
• Performance problems for data retrieval
• Index problems
• Memory issues

• Resource bottlenecks
Resources
• http://www.sharepointblogs.com/ethan/archive/2007/09/27/generatin
g-test-data.aspx
• http://www.idevfactory.com/
• http://www.codeplex.com/sptdatapop

15 15


Importance of Load Testing
• Small load tests already on developers machine
• Test as early as possible
• Test main use case scenarios

Visual Studio Team System for Tester
• Pre-configured Web&Load Tests from the SharePoint Team
• dynaTrace Integration with VSTS to analyze performance and
scalability issues

Resources
• http://www.codeplex.com/sptdatapop

16 16


DEMO
Load Testing SharePoint with Visual Studio Team
System

17 17

Contact me for follow up

Andreas Grabner
Mail: andreas.grabner@dynatrace.com
Blog: http://blog.dynatrace.com
Web: http://www.dynatrace.com

18 18

SharePoint TechCon 2009 - 602

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (20)

Similar to SharePoint TechCon 2009 - 602

Similar to SharePoint TechCon 2009 - 602 (20)

More from Andreas Grabner

More from Andreas Grabner (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

SharePoint TechCon 2009 - 602