Windows Server 2003 Application Server Performance and Scalability

This paper presents a comparison of the performance of Web application servers: the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 running on Windows Server 2003, and the latest release of IBM WebSphere Application Server, version 6.0.2.1. The paper shows that the fastest .NET implementation outperforms the fastest optimized WebSphere implementation by 38 percent, among other comparisons. The paper also includes a link to download sample code, to allow developers to perform a comparison using their own systems.

This paper examines a key scenario in which a hardware and software platform that is 64-bit capable shows significant benefits over a 32-bit platform: cached content. We analyzed this scenario using a Web-based benchmark application we created called CachePerf, which measures the performance of an application server as it receives incoming Web requests and services these using an object-level, server-based cache. The paper compares the performance of Windows Server 2003 and .NET 2.0, versus IBM WebSphere v6.0.2.3, on both 32-bit and 64-bit platforms. It shows that in this test scenario, the .NET implementations outperformed the WebSphere implementations by 54 percent and 61 percent, for 1000 unique searches on 32-bit, and 20,000 unique searches on 64-bit, respectively. The paper also includes a link to download sample code, which will allow developers to perform a comparison using their own systems.

As XML becomes ubiquitous as the data format for the enterprise, the ability to parse and process XML documents quickly and efficiently is critical. Windows Server 2003, relying on the .NET Framework 2.0, includes high-performance XML processing abilities. This paper compares XML Performance for .NET 2.0 Beta2, .NET 1.1, and Sun Java 1.5 using XML Mark, an XML parsing benchmark originally created by Sun Microsystems. The paper also includes a link to download sample code, which will allow developers to perform a comparison using their own systems.

The ability to interconnect disparate systems with Web services is now a fundamental requirement for the enterprise application platform. Windows Server 2003 with .NET natively delivers Web services capability. This paper compares Web Services Performance for 4 distinct platform configurations: Windows Server 2003 with .NET 2.0, Windows Server 2003 with .NET 1.1, Sun JWSDP 1.5 and IBM WebSphere Application Server v6.0. The paper uses as its basis for comparison the WSTest Web Service benchmark originally created by Sun Microsystems and later augmented by Microsoft. WSTest measures the performance of various Web service operations across varying SOAP object sizes. The paper also includes a link to download sample code, which will allow developers to perform a comparison using their own systems.

This document describes important tuning parameters and settings that you may want to customize to help improve performance in various workloads.

This white paper examines performance- and scalability-related changes in the Windows Server 2003 operating system, beginning with core operating system enhancements, followed by an examination of workload-specific changes and throughput gains for several common server workloads: database, Web, file, Active Directory, Terminal Services, and Windows Media Services.