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Third Party Product Review:
Reviews are a new feature of Planet Source Code that allow site visitors to share their experiences on commercial third party products in real life situations.

PipeBoost Internet Information Server (IIS) Content Compression Product

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Submitted on: 1/26/2002 2:01:22 PM
By: Ian Ippolito (RAC)  
Level: Beginner
User Rating: By 9 Users
Compatibility:ASP (Active Server Pages)

Users have accessed this review 29463 times.
 

(About the author)
 
     Pipebost is a content compression product that dynamically compresses content served out by your IIS server before it gets to the browser. This dramatically reduces the time it takes the document to load in the user's browser as well as cuts down on bandwidth usage. For example, PipeBoost has reduced the bandwidth usage on PlanetSourceCode.com by a whopping 27% --which is basically an entire T1! And the .asp pages load much quicker...about 50% faster than before. The slower your connection the more you notice PipeBoost.


 
 
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How does it work?

    How does it work?  If you think about it the .htm, .asp, etc. files being served by IIS are not very efficient...they are basically bulky text files.  If you could compress them before sending them out, your download times would be greatly shortened.

   I didn't know this before, but the HTTP 1.1 standard actually already includes support for this sort of compression.  This standard is supported in 95% of browsers...IE4.0+, Netscape 4.0+ and Opera 4.0+). However, you do need the right software on your internet server to recognize the browser and serve it out compressed content...and most servers don't have this.

    Microsoft included such a feature in IIS...but if you've used it, you know that it's a little buggy and it only works on static HTM pages...not your dynamic ASP pages.

    That's where PipeBoost comes into play.  It can compress content on the fly and serve it to the browser, which un-compresses it and displays it.  It is so simple to implement...you just run a short 3 minute install program and its ready to go...no configuration required on either the server or the browser (of course if you want to get fancy you can tweak the server GUI for hours...but for most installations the default install will be more than adequate).

Test Results

    Before rolling out PipeBoost, I tested it in the lab.  I downloaded the trial version and installed it on a server here in Tampa, Florida.  Then I put a test 9.12 Mb Excel Spreadsheet in a test directory and downloaded it from a browser located in Boston, Mass.  (this was done via terminal server) and measured the results.

    The improvement was eye-popping.

    Time to download
No compression   1 minute 2 seconds
PipeBoost compression   23 seconds
     
Difference:   3.7 x speed increase

    After rolling it into production, I immediately saw a 27% decrease in bandwidth usage...or about an entire T1 worth of data.  Planet Source Code actually has alot more compressed .zip files than most sites do (which of course can't be further compressed by PipeBoost), so most sites should see an even larger decrease in bandwidth.

Trying it on your own

    PipeBoost has a great tool on their web site that lets you test their product on your own web site, without having to install it...to get an idea of how much it can compress your content and save you.  Just go to PipeBoost and click on "Request Report" and then type in your URL.  The Planet Source Code home page showed that it could be compressed 73%!

My Conclusion

    This is one of the few 'must have' products for IIS.  I your website does anything more than trivial traffic, you should seriously consider this program.  To download this program , go to PipeBoost and click on 'Downloads'.


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Other User Comments
2/21/2002 10:06:20 AM:marc
You could at least have the decency to tell readers that this software costs $1499 per licence. It would have saved 15 minutes of my precious time.
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2/21/2002 10:27:46 AM:Ian Ippolito (psc)
Marc, Sorry if I didn't make it clear enough from my review that you were mislead. Let me clarify...if you're running a personal web site on your home machine, this product is not for you. However, I do recommend it for anyone running a site that takes up at least 1 T1 worth of bandwidth as it will pay for itself within a month. Ian
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2/24/2002 6:01:26 AM:Michael Barron
Doesn't the mod-GZip module for apache do this anyway,??
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2/24/2002 10:38:26 AM:Ian Ippolito (psc)
Michael, I don't know as I'm only familiar with IIS. This product doesn't work on Apache. Ian
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3/6/2002 9:23:17 AM:Shawn Elliott
This uses the same technology as the GZip module for apache. In all actuallity with the right C++ plugin made for IIS. In fact.. Even a Visual Basic plugin made to interface with IIS could do this. How do I know... because you can intercept all buffer output by IIS and then compress it. After you do that you modify the context-type that is sent back to the browser as the compressed type. Of course you would want to check the Agent to make certain it supports this. If not then you don't buffer the output from the server request. If so then you do. My company had me implement something like this with apache using something similar to the mod for Apache but with some slight modifications
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3/6/2002 11:01:17 PM:alik996
Elliot, sound's like you never in your life done any programming for IIS at all. First, there is not way you can intercept IIS calls easily, expect writing an ISAPI filter. And you should know, that they can't write ISAPI filter in Visual Basic at all. There is a technique of developing ISAPI filters in VB, by using Desaware.com (Spyworks). This will make performance terrible. I understand jealousy of people when see real quality product. Usually they think "I could write the same thing and make so much money". Development of the same application for Apache is almost no brainier. You have to just take source code of mod_gizp (Open Source) and modify it a little bit if you want to. Apache and IIS absolutely 2 incomparable differences. There is no way to do it in VB. Period. Please try not to advise anything without deep knowledge of the issue.
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3/11/2002 2:49:43 PM:AndrComm
http://www.justpc.com/iax.htm
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3/11/2002 3:42:28 PM:Ian Ippolito (psc)
AndrComm, FYI, there's a difference between programming an ISAPI application(which is what the link you just posted shows how to do) and an ISAPI FILTER, like Pipeboost. An ISAPI app basically returns web content, while a filter sits on top of something like ASP and filters content. An ISAPI application can be done in VB, but as far as I know, an ISAPI filter cannot (with the exception mentioned above by alik996, of Spyworks) be written in VB. Then to further complicate matters further...in VB.NET, it will be possible to create ISAPI filters for ASP.NET applications.
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3/12/2002 1:52:55 AM:alik996
AndrComm, Key difference between ISAPI Filter and ISAPI Extension that is ISAPI Filter is being executed on EVERY ACCESS to the web server. No matter this is an ASP script, image or anything else. Just think about performance of your web server, when you have to parse strings and data streams in VB on EVERY REQUEST and RESPONSE. VB is still macro language, and it can’t come even closer to power of C++. Implementation of this scenario will limit power of your IIS to 1 executed thread at the time. Answer is very simple, it’s impossible to implement ISAPI filter in VB with same efficiency as in C++. Period.
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3/18/2002 9:25:13 AM:AndrComm
Ok, I figured that out a second after I clicked submit... silly me :)
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4/25/2002 5:26:21 PM:Shawn Elliott
alik996, I am willing to admit that I posted a bit hasty... but after checking back with this conversation noted you made the comment "VB is still macro language" after telling me that I need to "Please try not to advise anything without deep knowledge of the issue". I believe that you have been found guilty of the same thing with which you have accused me of. Yes Visual Basic does require the runtime dynamic linked library for some codebase. But it is not a 'macro' language. It used to be and still can be compiled into pseudo code which used tokens for code. However, since VB5, Visual Basic supports native compilation which means that Visual Basic compiles into native machine code.
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5/1/2002 5:28:29 PM:Wilson
My last post got garbled. I wanted to point out the www.megaphat.com has a tool called vbExport which my company has used to successfully develop ISAPI filters and extensions.
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5/1/2002 5:37:00 PM:Wilson
'Implementation of this scenario will limit power of your IIS to 1 executed thread at the time. Answer is very simple, it’s impossible to implement ISAPI filter in VB with same efficiency as in C++. Period.' This isn't true. While VB Classes are STA objects that doesn't nto mean your Filter will limit IIS to a single thread of execution unless YOU, the PROGRAMMER cause that to happen through crappy design. The real programmer would use COM+ for object pooling, this would be considerably more efficient than instancing objects you need on every page access. Also with something like vbExport you're not living within a single object, you're living within a DLL that has exports, just like C allows.
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5/1/2002 5:50:04 PM:Wilson
Win32 is Win32 and pointers are pointers, regardless if the language is VB or C. From that perspective, you can come down to C/C++ equivalent speeds in string manipulation using VB. Marginal at worst, meaning that for 1 million iterations of processing you might lose 2-4 seconds. I know this because in 2000 a group of us spent 3-4 weeks benchmarking alternative string algorithms within VB, C, Delphi and Assembler. With a base processing time of 5 seconds (this is iterative, fill and spill cycles and similar), ASM (highly optimized) modules acheived ~400-600ms for 5mb of string data. C acheived <2 seconds with full compiler optimizations while VB acheived <5 seconds. Now do the math. 5MB of data.. 2-5second performance hit. Relate that to total cost of performance versus time to market and cost of labor... ISAPI is doable in VB. Period.
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5/1/2002 5:53:52 PM:Wilson
The last thing I wanted to point out here was that the guy who said ISAPI was possible in VB was not incorrect. And while it may not be your personal choice in programming a solution, don't sit here and beat a man down because you don't fully understand a solution yourself. If you don't agree, that's fine. Everyone has opinion, but you're out of place trying to convince everyone who reads tehse posts that such work is impossible and largely inconcievable using VB. It's not. You just lack the experience to make it happen the way it should. Unfortunately 60% of the 'VB developers' out there are just like that, will probably write fundamentall loathesome code that largely underperforms a C/C++ (or even Java) equivalent. You can't blame the platform or the languages, it's the programmers...
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5/13/2002 4:13:26 PM:John Heslop
Im confused, C/C++ that IIS that what dose it all mean :P
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6/5/2002 11:00:29 AM:Falko Schwabe
I don't agree to guys who say VB is slow and not a solution for speed programming. I currently develop a 3D Engine in VB, the only speed hole in the Engine is Windows itself. If you have a target and you know how to do it in VB then sometimes u will be able to win against C++. An example, I wrote a Setup in VB, but as I compared it with a C++-Setup, like Microsoft's Install Shield, my was the faster one in copying files (hurray :-). These my last words: Ian, keep smiling, the only thing you did is that you speed up PSC which million of programmers use with slow modems. PS: To alik996 who said VB is a macro language. VBA, included in MS Office Appz, is a macro language, but not the native VB. VB has a native compiler, and that's a great difference to VBA. PPS: I know my English is bad, sorry, I'm a *ucking German.
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6/5/2002 8:57:32 PM:Ian Ippolito (psc)
Pretty ungrateful guy, Falko....A million 56kbps modems got sped up from 32kbps to 51kbps and you're not happy! Just kidding, because I assume you are too! ;) Anyway, I think Alik is talking about older versions of VB (i.e. VB 5.0 and before). VB 6.0 compiles using the same native compiler as C/C++ and of course in VB.NET the end result is virtually indistinguishable from C++ or C#. Ian
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6/7/2002 8:57:56 AM:Falko Schwabe
Sorry, Ian, I have an ISDN-Adapter. My message was that you've helped many of us (!!! I'm very happy ... and other peoples too !!!). X-DSL overwhelms the Internet-Economy, and one time everyone has a DSL-Adapter (or better). But til now, the majority use standard modems. I never wanted to annoy you ... sorry sorry sorry.
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6/7/2002 5:56:59 PM:Ian Ippolito (psc)
No problem Falko...I just misunderstood, but as you can tell from my last post I wasn't annoyed with you, I just thought you were joking! ;) Ian
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6/13/2002 1:47:03 PM:Julien Gascon Samson
I have a question; is VB6 REALLY faster than VB5? I currently use VB5, should I move to VB6 or VB.NET?
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6/23/2002 6:32:53 AM:Kage
Julien, yes, VB6 is faster to a degree. There were a few moderate changes, but I'm really fuzzy on the details. All I know is, VB6 is more widely supported.
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8/20/2002 9:29:52 AM:Brian Clark
From what I can see this took alot of work and turned out to be an great product! Also for the VB6 Question. I currently use VB.NET and it seems to be faster than VB6. I think the MS.NET Framework has alot to do with the speed. I have really been able to increase production time on the .NET platform.
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8/21/2002 10:45:09 AM:Vlad Vissoultchev
can someone comment this: Internet Information Services->(your host)->Properties->Master Properties->WWW Service->[Edit]->Service->HTTP Compress->Compress Application Files/Compress Static Files also check out in ISAPI Filters tab the Compress (!) filter. as far as i understand it GZIP (deflate) compression of HTML files/ASP output in IIS 5.0 is only a click away. no 3rd party filters needed whatsoever. now, am i getting something wrong here?! HTH, </wqw>
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8/21/2002 11:20:49 AM:Ian Ippolito (psc)
Vlad, My understanding from reading the documentation on that feature is that it only applies to HTM files...not to ASP files. Ian
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8/22/2002 11:15:25 AM:M Dikov
Ian I don't know which document you have in mind, but the one I am reading says (and I tested it), that with IIS you can compress on the fly htm, txt, html, asp, exe, dll files by default and whatever file types you want if you edit the IIS metabase. Here is what I am reading: http://www.microsoft.com/techn et/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/pro dtechnol/iis/maintain/featusability/http comp.asp
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8/22/2002 11:21:49 AM:Ian Ippolito (psc)
M. Dikov, Whoops...bad memory on my part. I should have said "the feature is not recommended by Microsoft to be used with dyamic content such as .asp pages". (look under "Not ideal situations to enable HTTP Compression: " in your link). I believe the Pipeboost product is optimized for this....hopefully a Pipeboost person is reading this discussion and will chime in with info on that side...
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8/23/2002 11:53:14 AM:jk
I love all this banter. Everyone should get up to speed with the current languages out there. VB.NET can be used for an ISAPI filter, it's quite easy. It is also quite easy to multithread a vb app now. Or you can even use C#... same speed though since it all compiles to MSIL
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11/29/2002 12:10:01 PM:Lucas Holt
The Microsoft solution is buggy. In particular, there are problems on non windows platforms. For example, sometimes IE 5 Mac has problems interpreting a response from IIS as a compressed stream. The browser displays the compressed document (i.e. garbage) to the user. If this other product fixes this problem or disables IE 5 mac, then it would be worth the money for large organizations.
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