How to find performance hotspots in a .Net application?

Question

I have an existing ASP.NET 2.0 web service serving several WinForms clients. In our application, we believe that we have performance problems at several levels.

• Sending toomuch data in a synchronous request
• Lazy loading, Too much travel around the web service and database
• POCO ↔ Display Sql objects using untyped datasets and reflection [no caching]

This is an existing application with a large code base, I would like to use this application to search for hot spots.

• How can I manage remote applications as a winforms client deployed to remote locations?
• How can I manage a web service?
• Edit ** Are there any better profilers than VS profiler?
• Can I trust profilers to tell me hot spots, so I don’t pollute my code with tools? Or do I have to take the middle road, profiler + measuring instruments?

Answer 1

This can help:
ASP.NET and WorkerThreads - Interesting Performance Settings
20 tips for improving ASP.net application performance
Use custom Http handlers to improve performance in ASP.NET
Best Practices for ASP.Net Applications
Scaling Strategies for ASP.NET Applications

Answer 2

I would recommend checking out dotTrace . I admit that I did not use this, but I used their other flagship product (Resharper), which is outstanding.

Answer 3

This is a great tool for profiling and troubleshooting a direct web application: http://newrelic.com/