Scalability of Data Binding in ASP.NET 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. Most developers use default properties of ASP.NET server controls when developing web applications, which allows for rapid development of workable applications. However, creating a high-performance, multi-user, and scalable web application requires enhancement of server controls using custom-made code. In this empirical study we evaluate the impact of various technical approaches for paging and sorting functionality in data-driven ASP.NET web applications: automatic data paging and sorting in web server controls on web server; paging and sorting on database server; indexed and non-indexed database columns; clustered vs. non-clustered indices. We observed significant performance improvements when custom paging based on SQL stored procedure and clustered index is used.