Meaning of time-taken value for ASP pages in w3c format log files

[Simon Wadsworth]

My application uses VB6 WebClasses to handle the UI, so all requests come in
via a stub ASP page.

I would like to know the time taken for the request to be processed. I am
trying to use the time-taken value in the IIS log files by I am unclear as to
the precise meaning of the value recorded.

Using a test WebClass on a development PC (Win2K Pro/SP4) the value recorded
in the IIS log files seems to vary:

1. If Response.Buffer=True, then the time recorded is the amount of time
spent in the WebClass call.

2. If Response.Buffer=False, then the time recorded is the amount of time
spent in the WebClass call PLUS the amount of time required to send the
response data to the client browser.

However, on our production servers the Response.Buffer=True is always used
but the times recorded seen to indicate that they include the data transfer
time as well. i.e. low bandwith client accesses have a larger time-taken than
local LAN users for an equivalent volume of data.

Additionally, I was my understanding that when Buffering was used with an
ASP page the sc-bytes value was not recorded. Again, on the production server
this value IS being recorded and seems accurate.

The production servers are W2K AS/SP4 using HTTPS, Basic Authentication and
Certificates.

Does anyone have any definitive information on this?

Many Thanks

 

[Steve Radich \(BitShop, Inc.\)]

If memory serves the time-taken is the total time, including transfer, as
you said. This isn't meant really for performance troubleshooting of your
pages.

You can use a third party component like asptime to grab the server time
before/after your code and either record it to ram, or record it to a
database somewhere.

Depending on what you are doing exactly you could even get time taken and
return it to the client to say how long their request took (you don't have
to display it, but you could return it so you can enable debugging on the
client to show it).

One component for asp is asptime which is free and stable -
http://www.kamath.com/downloads/default.asp?DLOAD=2 - That's no relation to
me nor BitShop, but we've used it a few times.

Steve Radich - Hosting, Colocation, Troubleshooting IIS, NT, Exchange, etc.
BitShop, Inc. - http://www.bitshop.com - IIS Experts since 1996