Empirical study of performance of data binding in ASP.NET web applications
This is an incremental study that addresses performance optimization for developers building scalable, multi-user ASP.NET web applications.
The study evaluated the performance impact of different technical approaches for data binding, paging, sorting, and filtering in ASP.NET web applications, finding significant performance differences between methods such as automatic data binding, server-side vs. database-side operations, and index types.
Most developers use default properties of ASP.NET server controls when developing web applications. ASP.NET web applications typically employ server controls to provide dynamic web pages, and data-bound server controls to display and maintain database data. Though the default properties allow for fast creation of workable applications, creating a high-performance, multi-user, and scalable web application requires careful configuring of server controls and their enhancement using custom-made code. In providing commonly required functionality in data-driven ASP.NET web applications such as paging, sorting and filtering, our empirical study evaluated the impact of various technical approaches: automatic data binding in web server controls; data paging and sorting on web server; paging and sorting on database server; indexed and non-indexed database columns; clustered vs. non-clustered indices. The study observed significant performance differences between various technical approaches.