Stefan Caunter

This is different, and useful website speed test, especially because of the external element count and total page load time. Enjoy.

Being able to see how your load balance algorithm works in real time is a huge advantage for IIS7 – the performance monitor lets us see real time incoming http request, and real time ASP queue size. Correlating this view with a scrolling filtered view of varnishlog checking for Backend health and reuse lets us confirm that we have an optimized load balance algorithm.

We need two perfmon msc files set up and saved; one will view HTTP arrival rates across the farm (HTTP Service Request Queues / Arrival Rate). I like the histogram display for my five servers. When a box comes out of the pool, we see its “bar” dip nice and low, to give it a break from traffic until it recovers health. The other will view ASP.NET v2.0.50727 Requests Current for each IIS7 w3wp.exe in histogram view. If this “bar” starts going up, we look for correlation to varnish health checks.

The backend probe, that ultimately decides whether our server gets traffic or not, needs to check if ASP can build a page, but not be too expensive. Don’t ask for a heavy page, but get your developer to build a simple aspx page, and set a time and frequency that takes the server out if it cannot answer acceptably.

I use 200ms for my check.

.probe = {
.url = “/howyoudoin/”;
.timeout = 200 ms;
.interval = 5s;
.window = 5;
.threshold = 1;
}

This url is served from the default web site, on the IP address, and actually triggers the real ASP page (defined in web.config) that runs in our high traffic webapp. You need to tune for aggressive .timeout, but still keep the box in the pool for most traffic. No point in setting this so that varnish cannot find healthy backends.

Once you have directors set up with backend probes, as above, view perfmon on your IIS console, and set up shell windows with filtered scrolling varnishlog data on your varnish server (or the same one if you have several in front of your webapp).

varnishlog|grep Backend_health

This scrolling display shows which IIS7 servers are seen to be healthy and which are not.

varnishlog|grep BackendReuse

This scrolling display (it will go fast if you get a lot of traffic) shows which IIS7 server is preferred by your client director. You set up in a client director a preferred backend, and it will show as preferred when it is healthy. If its ASP queue gets too large, it will fail health check probe, be marked sick, and traffic will start to flow to the next preferred server defined in the client director. The incoming http traffic display to the IIS7 backends will reflect this behaviour.

We get confirmation of our settings by observing ASP queues build, the IIS7 server fail the health check, the load balance algorithm adjust to a healthy server, and the incoming http traffic sent by varnish move to another IIS7 server.

Preamble: I wrote this 22 years ago The notes were published in my college paper as follows. Enjoy:

The following is an edited transcript of notes I took while attending the Economic Summit. If the reader finds the tone to be somewhat sarcastic or irreverant, they will have understood much of what I felt at the time. I do not speak of policies, plenaries, or communiques, because that was covered in the Globe and Mail and elsewhere; neither do I discuss at any length the massive police action against the University Avenue demonstration. It is important to bear in mind that the “Summit Square” which was constructed for the benefit of the media kept us completely isolated from the outside world.
All we heard at the time was either government documentation, mainstream press coverage, i.e. Toronto Police News Bulletins, or accounts from journalists who had ventured outside. It was a surreal education in the power of the state and the control of information.

Sunday June 19, 1988. 2:30 p.m. I am about to travel through downtown Toronto from Lawrence and Bayview to Front and John to pick up my media credentials, the reporter’s “holy grail” this weekend, for the summit is undoubtedly the place to be for those in the disinformation industry.
Dressed in jacket and tie, on a hazy early summers’s day, with a slight hangover and carrying a York notebinder and my electric guitar, I am driven by two goals. One is my curiosity at the spectacle of world leaders gathering to discuss the important issues of the day in my town, developed since the visit of Mitterand to Glendon last year. The other is the prospect of free food and a 24 hour open bar for three days.
2:45 p.m. I’m on the subway travelling southbound. Opposite me, a man reads a Star with headline, “Summit Security Forces Arrest Suspected IRA Man.” This poor guy just happened to be an Irishman sitting int the wrong bar at the wrong time. Beside me, my Gibson guitar, looking suspiciously like an AK-47, or bomb, or something. Come to think of it, I look a bit like a KGB guy with my eyebrows and dark glasses, but my ‘mod’ British jacket and slim tie belie this. Still, I cannot help but think I should have left my guitar at home. But i’ve got rehearsal tonight, and no one will bother and accredited reporter, right?
3:20 p.m. i am “accredited with a badge,” and have been stopped twice by police who want to look at my guitar. But i walked past all kinds of other cops. Must be because i shaved. One cop was interested in the lyrics to “Never Understand” by the Jesus and Mary Chain which were in my case.
4:25 p.m. i’ve left the Summit Square,” travelling west on King to work. i picked up some propaganda (i mean information) and went to Summit Square for a drink. No sign of other Pro Tem types in the Beirut airport-like security, but i met a couple of Americans from the White House delegation, Tony and Carol Lee, who looked to be in their mid-thirties. They ate ice-cream while i and a Dutch journalist sipped a ‘Bud’. The Americans seemed to be aware of the general white-washing of the city which had gone on. “I know they took away all the prostitutes,” said Carol Lee, with a glint in her eye which i could not interpret. Tony talked a bit in his Virginia accent about the IMF treaty (sic), on which the Dutch fellow corrected him. “You mean INF.” Tony wished the world was rid of nuclear weapons. Carol Lee thought that they were a good thing and wanted them around; i guess they make her world more exciting. Tony said, “Carol Lee, you’re more conservative than me,” to which she replied, “I’m as right as you can get.” The whole thing has so far had a very unreal air about it, what with six million dollars worth of Department of National Defense, RCMP, and police officers, smiling summit propagandists assigned to promote Toronto for the 1996 Olympics, strange Americans, hordes of Japanese journalists, and a huge Toronto media presence, largely due to the hospitality and largesse which would shame any French despot.

It’s now 5:10 p.m. on Sunday evening. The propaganda level was intense, and intended to cast Toronto in the best possible light. There was a ‘Royal Trust’ display in Summit Square with portraits of the seven leaders, unrecognizably flatteringly done around a 15 foot high cardboard column. Imaging Mitterand with a straight nose, or Mulroney with a well-proportioned face. But that’s the kind of view we’re getting from all angles anyway: nothing is going to happen, everything is just photo-ops and state-dinners, and above all keeping the media happy in the face of boredom.
i asked at one booth where i could get a souvenir ‘summit bag,’ and was promptly descended upon by two PR men who apologized and explained away the situation while i sipped on a ‘Bud’, regretting having ever brought up the subject.
1:00 a.m. i’m watching the crowd here boogie to “Joker’s Wild” courtesy of Blue Rodeo. One of the guitarists is wearing a ‘Feed the Poor’ T-shirt. A delegation from Holland is force-feeding beer to one of their own. I met poet Robert Priest here tonight, and we both agreed that this place and this kind of spectacle was disgusting, as we sipped a ‘Bud’. There are TV cameras on every once in a while.
i feel this city is offended by this whole thing; is the barbed wire and security keeping us in or the city out? Priest said it was like the pre-revolution situation in France, with the privileged on the inside, and the vast majority locked out. The band has come back out for and encore; “This is sure not what we expected.” Everyone is partying heavily. Bottles of ‘summit wine’ specially bottled for the occasion, Canadian and OK, are slipped into summit bags, as is the ever-abundant beer.
This is turning into a great exercise in doublethink. The feeling among Torontonians here is to get what you can while you can. i’m still sipping a ‘Bud’, and it’s after one.
Blue Rodeo’s out for their second encore, playing what they call the national anthem, “Bud the Spud from PEI.” It’s a song about potatoes. One feels curiously safe here, and yet threatened at the same time. For instance, I’m not worried about having my pocket picked, but i’ll be subject to immediate arrest if i remove my media identification necklace for one minute. i’m not going to be attacked on the street here, unless i happen to offend the police, but i do not think i would be able to exercise my right to free speech here. Ronald Reagan is an ass. At least i can still write it and think it, even if i can’t say it.
Monday June 20, 8:50 a.m. I’m waiting for Reagan, with about 30 television cameramen and journalists. Everyone is relaxed. The morning mainstream press is aglow with praise for the fine job Toronto is doing. The summitteers have been all smiles, with pictures of Brian kissing Nancy Reagan, and Ronnie kissing Mila. Someone’s arriving – it’s George Schultz, and he didn’t even wave. Security types just got nervous about a CBC ‘shotgun mike.’ It looks like a gun, but it’s not. Joe Clark just strolled by. Well this is boring – no Reagan. But he is coming. In fact all seven leaders are going to walk by the assembled world media, who are going to shout questions at them in hopes of extracting a precious quote, and the all important TV clip. i talk for twenty minutes with CUP people; then the leaders start arriving. Reagan arrives a full ten minutes later than the others, who all arrived within the space of ten minutes. Hollywood. The one question he hears is, “Anything on beef and citrus,” referring to an agreement to reduce tariffs on those exports to Japan, but he doesn’t understand, or hear properly, so he makes a funny face, and leaves to gales of laughter.
It was fascinating to be able to observe the leaders in person, even though they were only walking through for 15 seconds. It’s different than a TV clip. There is a tension in the air which is absent from the television. One feels it as one observes the security men, the other journalists, and the elaborate preparations for this little walk-past before they disappear into the bowels of the Convention Centre. Some of the veteran TV journalists and White House people were bored, but the local people were thrilled as the leaders walked by, thrilled i think by seeing the object of their animosity and derision, or their idol, walk past in the flesh. My reaction was that i said to myself, “i can’t believe it’s actually goddamn Ronald Reagan.” i also found myself amazed that Reagan was shot; he came in surrounded by thirty men, and everyone else had been searched and X-rayed.
The man is a consummate performer, a marvellous actor. i’ll never forget the sight of him getting out of his car, flashing a big grin, and earnestly saluting the Canadian guards before he walked in. Speaking to correspondents from US News and World Report, i got the impression that this was indeed the Reagan persona. He learns his role, his lines, and plays them out; this is his reality, and he is at ease with a rearmingly honest smile which comes to him like it is second nature.
His demeanour seems to epitomize the deportment of the American delegation. The journalists are another case; they’ve seen it all before in most cases, and have made their assessments long ago, but for the people who live the Presidency, Reagan and all he stands for is their life. I talked to Air Force One personnel, extraordinarily nice and pleasant people. They were stewards aboard the plane that carries Reagan wherever he goes; they live the illusion that is Ronald Reagan. But Reagan only intensified a mythology around the Presidency which existed before. Unlike Ford and Carter, however, he was fully prepared to play that symbolic role to the exclusion of any other part of his persona. Most of what i am saying here has been plain to see on television screens since 1981, but seeing the man truly clarifies the general perception which one hesitates to embrace too wholeheartedly for fear of undendurable anxiety outbreaks about the future of the world.
But as i have said, Ron was surrounded by people, the people who are actually far more the President than he actually is, for the President is really many many people, with a single man to fulfil the actual role.
Tuesday, June 21, 2:00 a.m. i’ve just finished a fascinating discussion with Peter White of National Geographic, the man who wrote those wonderful articles on opium, gold, and Tolstoy, to name but a few. i wondered what he was doing at such a political event like the Toronto Summit; it turned out he was researching an article on money for the venerable publication. He was particularly interested in the discussions on Third World Debt. His next work for publication is going to be on the cocaine trade in Columbia, from where he had just come. Not surprisingly, he said it had been a very dangerous assignment, more so than the opium story, because of the more violent and volatile nature of the people involved in the industry. It had necessitated adopting the identity of foreign travellers, i.e. not North American, to escape suspicion of being a DEA official, which can mean certain death. He has been one of the most interesting people i have met here, and, having been an avid reader of his work, i shall treasure our acquaintance.
i’ve been going all day on adrenaline, having slept four hours last night. i don’t think i’ll go home tonight, i’ll just crash in the Convention Centre. i went and saw Irish band The Pogues tonight. It was beautiful, a celebration of life. The Masonic Temple was crowded and swelteringly hot; the people jumped exuberantly along to each rollicking jig. It was good to get back to real life and people who were really alive and not living a summit lie, like i have been. i think that the people who do this type of politico-diplomatic engagement professionally, like Carol Lee, truly love it here, but it is wearing thin on me, both novelty and spectacle alike. There’s a helicopter overhead now. It looks like an enormous flying beetle shining beams of light onto Toronto’s towers. Time to seek a place to rest.
Conclusion and Reagan encounter to follow soon!

Original published 1988 summit notes from the last “Economic Summit” that closed Toronto. Wonder if anything sounds familiar…
I’ll transcribe it shortly into text; the Apple OCR can’t parse the 23 year old typesetting on this pdf scan that York put up a couple of years ago. Page 4 is the text if you feel like downloading the pdf. Oddly enough, Tony and Carol Lee are still Republican writers.

Not liking the double tweet thing…
so I have disabled posting to PBJ laconica through the WP laconica plug in; I had it set to post to pbj, which then reposted to twitter…
Still like the twitter feed on the blog front page, though not as much as the “where am i” google latitude thingy…