Improve the overall performance of a HttpRequest in .NET

Question

I'm building a very slimmed down website. And I would like to know what I can do, to improve performance as much as possible.

The site should do something like,

1. fetch a header from the request.
2. make an asynchronous SOAP call.
3. redirect the request to another server.

To be able to do this I also need to be able to use the cache. So! What can I do to improve the performance of this small service? What HttpModules can I unload? Should I use a webform page? Should I write a HttpHandler? Are there any other tips?

I know this is might be pseudo optimizing, but this service will be under very heavy load for short times and I would like to know that I did as much as I could.

Answer 1

I was working with HttpHandlers in an attempt to create a very fast tiny website. See the accepted answer for this question I asked here on SO: Something faster than HttpHandlers?.

Generally I would say an HttpHandler and turning off the HttpModules you don't need, should be a very effective solution. You're heading in the right direction with your own suggestions.

Answer 2

Definitely use an HttpHandler instead of a Page. This will remove all the lifecycle processing that Page objects go through.

Ultimately, if you need to "extreme optimize", you could code an ISAPI filter. This would be a last resort though.