Improving Performance

This topic lists some specific considerations with regard to planning, installation and designing with K2 that can help to improve the performance of your environment.

For an example of performance and scalability see the following KB article which discusses test scenarios, hardware and testing results by K2 versions.

K2 product version

It is always recommended that the latest versions of K2 software be used as newer versions may contain performance improvements. This can be done by reviewing the release notes of latest K2 software versions that are released.

Network load balancing and K2 performance

When K2 is installed as a farm behind a load balancer, it is common to set a loopback entry within the HOSTS file on each of the nodes in the K2 farm that maps the DNS name of the farm/load balancer to the local server. Specifically, this means editing the HOSTS file (typically located at: c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) with an entry similar to below:

127.0.0.1 K2.Denallix.com

Where:

  • 127.0.0.1– is the universal loop back address for this current machine on which the HOSTS file is being edited. Using this loop back address avoids the need for the server to make I/O calls to the network card .
  • K2.Denallix.com– DNS name of the K2 farm.

This configuration will result in any calls made by the K2 server to the load balancer DNS name staying local on this server. This can have significant performance improvements as it drastically reduces the amount of round trips to the load balancer from a K2 server. Additionally, it is a good idea to add the NETBIOS and FQN names of the K2 farm, host headers and smartforms runtime site to the HOSTS file to ensure all paths are accounted for.

K2 Site

  • It is recommended that both K2 Site and K2 Five be installed on the same server. This will remove the variable of network latency as a performance concern. Considering how much smartforms rely upon interaction with the SmartObjects on the K2 service, this may have a noticeable impact in high load/high latency environments.
    • The guidance above applies especially to the Runtime site.
  • Prior to installing K2 Site, ensure that the following Role Services are enabled within the Performance node to improve performance:
    • Static Content Compression (Installed)
    • Dynamic Content Compression (Installed)
  • See the K2 smartforms Developer Reference Performance topic for information on additional configuration changes you can make to improve performance.