Best performing ASP.NET Session State Providers; In-Proc, State Service, SQL Server, Redis, Couchbase, Raven and MongoDb - We test them all.

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Best performing ASP.NET Session
State Providers - 2013
The Results
By TheDevMgr
@DevOpsGuys
http://blog.devopsguys.com
Email: team@devopsguys.com

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The Providers
IN-PROC
&
STATE SERVER

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The Providers
# Provider Version / NuGet Package / Project Url
1 ASP.NET In-Proc Native .NET 4.5
2 ASP.NET Session State Native .NET 4.5
3 ASP.NET Sql Server Native .NET 4.5
4 CouchBase CouchbaseAspNet v1.1
https://github.com/couchbaselabs/couchbase-aspnet
5 MongoDb MongoDB-ASP.NET-Session-State-Store v 1.1.0
https://github.com/AdaTheDev/MongoDB-ASP.NET-Session-State-Store
6 RavenDb Raven.AspNet.SessionState v1.7.980
https://github.com/mjrichardson/RavenDbSessionStateStoreProvider
7 Redis Harbour.RedisSessionStateStore v1.1.0.0
https://github.com/TheCloudlessSky/Harbour.RedisSessionStateStore

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The Application
• ASP.NET MVC 4.5 Web Application with 2 web
views; simple and complex.
• Simple Session State – strings, integers,
doubles, datetimes, timespans and Guids.
• Complex Session State – generic lists, array
lists, datasets and custom objects

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The Application
• Simple state test using 30 objects in session.
• Complex state test using 40 objects in session.

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The Load
• 1000 concurrent users over 60 minutes for
each test.
• Each test ran both simple and complex pages
(views) to test each session state type.
• Origin: EU West (Ireland)

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The Infrastructure
• Rackspace UK Public Cloud using OpenStack
• Cloud Load balancers x 1
• Cloud Servers x 6
– Windows and Linux

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The Servers
Server Role OS RAM
Web 1 IIS / ASP.NET Windows 2012 8GB
Web 2 IIS / ASP.NET Windows 2012 8GB
State Server • State Server Windows 2012 4GB
SQL Server • SQL Server 2012
Standard
Windows 2012 4GB
NoSQLDb-Win • MongoDb
• RavenDB
Windows 2012 4GB
NoSQLDb-Unix • Couchbase
• Redis
Ubuntu 4GB

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The Monitoring
• Web server monitoring only. *
• Multiple Windows Performance Counters
* Tests conducted before new relic plugins for SQL, mongo, etc released 

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THE RESULTS

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WINNER

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Best Performers
# Provider Remarks
1 Redis Overall the strongest performer winning 4 of 6 tests.
2 In-Proc Good performer, but not suitable for web farms.
3 Session State Service Very solid performer.
4 Couchbase Another solid performer.
5 SQL Server Best memory manager, but still a sledge hammer.
6 MongoDb Poor performance under high load, possible memory issues.
7 RavenDb The provider has a memory leak.

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Overall Results
# Provider Server
Response
Time (ms)
Throughput
(RPM)
Response
Time
(Avg.)(ms)
Response
Time
(Max)(ms)
Memory
Management
Hourly Growth
Processor
Time
(avg)
2 In-Proc 31 7630 401.56 25,002 0.58% 26%
3 Session State Service 33 7590 493.29 26,583 1.74% 29%
5 SQL Server 2012 34 7520 627.05 29,780 -0.26% 23%
1 Redis 33 7640 384.37 23,065 1.38% 20%
6 MongoDb 35 7060 1877.74 120,185 3.57% 25%
4 Couchbase 35 7590 508.99 27,615 1.48% 27%
7 RavenDb 1220 0.267 7584.38 41,512 91.5% 35%

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Couchbase In-Proc MongoDb RavenDb Redis
Session State
Provider
SQL Server 2012
Total 35 31 35 1220 33 33 34
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
AxisTitle
Server Response Time
IN-PROC

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Couchbase In-Proc MongoDb RavenDb Redis
Session State
Service
SQL Server 2012
Total 7590 7630 7060 0.267 7640 7590 7520
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
9000
AxisTitle
Transaction Throughput

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Couchbase In-Proc MongoDb RavenDb Redis
Session State
Service
SQL Server 2012
Total 508.99 401.56 1877.74 7584.38 384.37 493.29 627.05
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
AxisTitle
External Response Time *Avg

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Couchbase In-Proc MongoDb RavenDb Redis
Session State
Service
SQL Server 2012
Total 27615 25002 120185 41512 23065 26583 29780
0
20000
40000
60000
80000
100000
120000
140000
AxisTitle
External Response Time *Max

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Memory Management – Hourly Growth
Couchbase In-Proc MongoDb RavenDb Redis
Session State
Service
SQL Server 2012
Total 1.48% 0.58% 3.57% 91.50% 1.38% 1.74% -0.26%
-20.00%
0.00%
20.00%
40.00%
60.00%
80.00%
100.00%
AxisTitle

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Processor Time (Avg)
Couchbase In-Proc MongoDb RavenDb Redis
Session State
Service
SQL Server 2012
Total 27 26 25 35 20 29 23
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
AxisTitle

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APPENDICES
Other notable stuff

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RavenDb Provider Memory Leak
• More than 500MBs between overall Min and
overall Max and an increasing trend of more
than 100MBs per hour

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More Information
• We plan to release more information about
the test on the DevOpsGuys blog.
http://blog.devopsguys.com
THANKS FOR READING!