Configuring Web Gardens with IIS 6.0

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1

Important

This feature of IIS 6.0 is available only when IIS is running in worker process isolation mode.

In IIS 6.0 worker process isolation mode, application pools enhance Web site or application reliability by isolating applications and the worker processes that service those applications. For even greater reliability, you can configure an application pool to be supported by multiple worker processes. An application pool that uses more than one worker process is called a Web garden. The worker processes in a Web garden share the requests that arrive for that particular application pool. If a worker process fails, another worker process can continue to process requests.

Note

Web gardens are different from Web farms. A Web garden is configured on a single server by specifying multiple worker processes for an application pool. Web farms use multiple servers for a Web site.

Creating a Web garden for an application pool can also enhance performance in the following situations:

  • Robust processing of requests: When a worker process in an application pool is tied up (for example, when a script engine stops responding), other worker processes can accept and process requests for the application pool.

  • Reduced contention for resources: When a Web garden reaches a steady state, each new TCP/IP connection is assigned, according to a round-robin scheme, to a worker process in the Web garden. This helps smooth out workloads and reduce contention for resources that are bound to a worker process.

Procedures

Important

You must be a member of the Administrators group on the local computer to perform the following procedure or procedures. As a security best practice, log on to your computer by using an account that is not in the Administrators group, and then use the runas command to run IIS Manager as an administrator. At a command prompt, type runas /user:Administrative_AccountName "mmc %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\iis.msc".

To configure a Web garden by using IIS Manager

  1. In IIS Manager, expand the local computer, expand Application Pools, right-click the application pool, and then click Properties.

  2. Click the Performance tab, and under Web garden, in the Maximum number of worker processes box, type the number of worker processes that you want to assign to the application pool. (You must type a number greater than 1 for the application pool to become a Web garden.

  3. Click OK.

Optionally, you can configure a Web garden by setting the metabase property MaxProcesses. The MaxProcesses property determines the maximum number of worker processes that an application pool allows to service its requests. A value of zero indicates an unmanaged application pool that is not served by a worker process.

The default value for the MaxProcesses property is 1, which is the default number of worker processes that service an application pool. To configure an application pool so that it is a Web garden, set the MaxProcesses property to a value greater than 1.

Important

You must be a member of the Administrators group on the local computer to run scripts and executables. As a security best practice, log on to your computer by using an account that is not in the Administrators group, and then use the runas command to run your script or executable as an administrator. At a command prompt, type runas /profile /user:MyComputer</STRONG>Administrator cmd to open a command window with administrator rights and then type cscript.exe ScriptName (include the script's full path and any known parameters).

To configure a Web garden by using Adsutil.vbs

  1. In the Run dialog box, type cmd, and then click OK.

  2. At the command prompt, type:

    cscript %SystemDrive%\Inetpub\AdminScripts\adsutil.vbs set W3SVC/AppPools/ApplicationPoolName/MaxProcesses n

    Replace n with the number of worker processes that you want to service the application pool.

For more information about configuring Web gardens, see MaxProcesses Metabase Property.