Empirical study of performance of data binding in ASP.NET web applications

TL;DR

This empirical study evaluates how different data binding techniques and database configurations affect the performance of ASP.NET web applications, highlighting significant differences among various approaches.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive empirical analysis of data binding and database configurations impacting ASP.NET web app performance, guiding better development practices.

Findings

Automatic data binding impacts performance significantly.

Database indexing and clustering influence data retrieval speed.

Server-side paging and sorting methods vary in efficiency.

Abstract

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.