Question

IIS Dynamic Content Compression with Forms

Forms Version 10 Web Customizations

Updated May 7, 2019

asked on May 2, 2019 • Show version history

Has anyone enabled dynamic compression in IIS for use with Forms? Our configuration shows that that module is not installed. I get no search results from the online Forms documentation when searching for "dynamic compression" or "dynamic content".

Also, Laserfiche support has said it is outside the scope of normal Laserfiche support. I like to hope that it is up to the agency to decide since there are no warnings not to do it.

Is this something that should be avoided because of processor utilization? We have plenty of overhead that is not being used on our Forms server. I would actually LIKE to to utilize our processor more.

Thanks you for taking the time to read this and any replies, comments or concerns you compose.

@████████@████████@████████@████████

Chris

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replied on May 3, 2019

Just to clarify, "dynamic compression" is an IIS feature, and would be installed from Window's role manager. Our documentation is typically limited to covering the components the products depend on.

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replied on May 3, 2019

From everything that I have read about it, it is worth doing if you have the CPU to handle it. It basically makes smaller packets to send to a requesting browser which can in turn make it seem as though the application is responding faster. Even with having to decompress the packet, it still looks impressive. Here is a great article talking about the good and the bad: https://weblogs.asp.net/owscott/iis-7-compression-good-bad-how-much. As Brian said though, this is not specific to a Laserfiche feature, but an IIS feature.

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replied on May 6, 2019

Thanks Blake. I read this article and it is just gorgeous. Lots of well presented data. Looks like I am in undocumented territory here. Which, I consider a good thing in this case.

From my open support ticket with Laserfiche:

"Static content compression and dynamic content compression are features of IIS. They compress content at site level. There are no documentation suggest that Forms was tested with these features.

If you chose to enable these features via IIS, I can only recommend testing the feature in a test environment to ensure of meeting your expectation. Customization beyond the documentation in the installation guide is out of scope for Technical Support.

For these type of questions, I will have to refer you to consult with our pre-sale team or to post the question or use case on the answers site. Please add your findings and contribute to the posting you listed:"

This is the post. I will do my best to report back on what I find.

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replied on May 3, 2019

The thing with dynamic compression, is that you can't really know what is going to happen until you do it. Each environment is different enough, that nobody can tell you for sure. However, in general you'll see less than 5% of the CPU usage on a busy server going towards compression. In most cases, that's worth it for the massive bandwidth savings.

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replied on May 7, 2019

UPDATE:

I installed the dynamic content compression module and cranked it up. I could see the CPU get taxed as I tested. Unfortunately, I saw no difference in performance of my forms. Because of this, I don't plan on testing any further. No time.

Side Note:

I believe turning on dynamic compression and setting it anywhere from 4 - 6 would benefit performance with WebLink and Web Client. I have not tested this, but knowing how it works, it seems like a strong possibility.

Thanks,

Chris

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replied on May 7, 2019

Good to see that you've been able to play around a bit! It's never wasted effort if you've got something you can stick in your back pocket.

How are you defining "performance"? Dynamic compression on a local network is unlikely to have much of an impact. Where you see the most benefit is in a bandwidth constrained environment. If you don't have any users who may be coming from a slower external connection, then it probably isn't worth the CPU overhead.

You can simulate this more closely by changing the connection emulation in the network tab of the Chromium F12 tools.

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replied on May 7, 2019

handy to know. thanks!

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