Designing browser-enabled forms for performance in InfoPath Forms Services (Part 6)

Part 6 – Addendum: Links to related performance resources

Welcome to the sixth article in our series about designing InfoPath browser-enabled forms for better performance and scalability. In our previous articles we defined performance in terms of responsiveness, listed a number of conditions that cause postbacks, and looked at some of conditions that make postbacks more expensive, reducing the responsiveness and scalability of a form system. We also described some of the issues that affect form-rendering performance in the browser and suggested using the Design Checker to monitor browser compatibility issues while designing a form template in the InfoPath Designer. Finally, we listed some useful performance monitoring counters available in PerfMon.

In this addendum, we list a variety of links to additional resources you might want investigate if you are interested learning more about designing forms with InfoPath 2007. In keeping with our theme, the emphasis is on performance, but you will also find other related resources that you can use to broaden your understanding of the online forms environment. Since InfoPath is built on SharePoint technologies, the following resources provide information not only on InfoPath Forms Services and browser-enabled forms, but also SharePoint, ASP.NET, and SQL Server. In addition, we’ve included some general resources on monitoring and testing, and thrown in a few good blogs as well.

Hope you’ve found this series helpful in demystifying InfoPath browser-enabled forms performance. Be sure to let the InfoPath team know if you have comments or questions about your own forms requirements by adding comments here or on the InfoPath newsgroup listed below!

Thanks,

Brad Valantine
Technical Writer

InfoPath

Improving the Performance of InfoPath 2007 Forms
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb380251.aspx
A whitepaper about performance and the InfoPath rich client. Because of differences between the client and browser-enabled forms, not everything applies to Forms Services and browser forms, but a must read nonetheless.

InfoPath Forms Services best practices
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261832(TechNet.10).aspx

Microsoft Office Forms Server TechNet TechCenter
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/bb267350.aspx

InfoPath Forms Services roadmap
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262885.aspx

InfoPath 2007 features that are unavailable in InfoPath Forms Services
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/infopath/HA102105871033.aspx

Forms Server 2007 Home Page
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/formsserver/FX100490391033.aspx

InfoPath 2007 Home Page
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/infopath/FX100487661033.aspx

Planning and architecture for Office Forms Server 2007
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303371(TechNet.10).aspx

Plan InfoPath Forms Services
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262498(TechNet.10).aspx

Office Developer Center: InfoPath 2007 Resource Center
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/aa905443.aspx

InfoPath Forms Services Architecture
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms772323.aspx

Form Development and Deployment Lifecycle
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms772031.aspx

Creating InfoPath Form Templates That Work With Forms Services
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/aa945450(VS.80).aspx

Support: Microsoft Help and Support: Forms Server 2007 Solution Center
http://support.microsoft.com/ph/11846

SharePoint

Plan for performance and capacity (Office SharePoint Server)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262971(TechNet.10).aspx

Plan for performance and capacity (Windows SharePoint Services)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288124(TechNet.10).aspx

White paper: Intel Performance Testing of Windows SharePoint Services (WP)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288383(TechNet.10).aspx

How to Optimize a SharePoint Server 2007 Web Content Management Site for Performance
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727371.aspx

White paper: Planning and Monitoring SQL Server Storage for Windows SharePoint Services: Performance Recommendations and Best Practices
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287996(TechNet.10).aspx

ASP.NET

ASP.NET Performance
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/44e5wy6k.aspx

ASP.NET Session State Overview
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178581.aspx

Developing High-Performance ASP.NET Applications
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/5dws599a.aspx

Monitoring ASP.NET Application Performance
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/3xxk09t8.aspx

SQL Server

Performance (Database Engine)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb510669(SQL.100).aspx

Monitoring (Database Engine)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb510705(SQL.100).aspx

Monitoring and Testing

Life-Cycle Performance Testing for Eliminating Last-Minute Surprises
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb905531.aspx

Server Performance and Scalability Killers
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms951773.aspx

Performance Counters in the .NET Framework
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/w8f5kw2e.aspx

Books 

Designing Forms for Microsoft Office InfoPath and Forms Services 2007 (Microsoft .NET Development Series)
By Scott Roberts and Hagen Green
Publisher: Addison-Wesley (c. 2007)
ISBN 0321410599
http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321410599

A couple of great online books from the folks in Patterns and Practices:
Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998530.aspx

Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb924375.aspx

Blogs and Newsgroups

Pashman's InfoPath Goldmine: Tips and Tricks for Tuning Forms Services Performance
http://blogs.msdn.com/timpash/archive/2007/08/02/tips-and-tricks-for-tuning-forms-services-performance.aspx

Performance Research, Part 1: What the 80/20 Rule Tells Us about Reducing HTTP Requests
http://yuiblog.com/blog/2006/11/28/performance-research-part-1/
The first article in a series about research done by Yahoo into web page performance optimization.

Agile Testing: Performance vs. load vs. stress testing
http://agiletesting.blogspot.com/2005/02/performance-vs-load-vs-stress-testing.html

Ben Curry: Using Performance Monitor (perfmon.exe) to Monitor SharePoint Server 2007
http://mindsharpblogs.com/ben/archive/2007/02/14/1569.aspx

Ben Curry: SharePoint Server 2007 Performance Counters
http://mindsharpblogs.com/ben/archive/2008/05/07/4806.aspx

Thom Robbins .NET Weblog: InfoPath Tips and Tricks
http://blogs.msdn.com/trobbins/archive/tags/InfoPath+Tips+and+Tricks/default.aspx

Joel Oleson's Blog - SharePoint Land:
Performance & Scale
http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/tags/Performance+_2600_amp_3B00_+Scale/default.aspx

Good List of Performance Counters
http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/01/16/good-list-of-performance-counters.aspx

S.Y.M. Wong-A-Ton: Enterprise Solutions
http://enterprise-solutions.swits.net/

Paul Vick - Panopticon Central: The Ten Rules of Performance
http://www.panopticoncentral.net/archive/2004/02/10/270.aspx

Technorati - infopath Blogs, Photos, Videos and more on Technorati
http://technorati.com/tag/InfoPath

Discussions in Infopath General Questions
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.infopath&lang=en&cr=US
Use this newsgroup to communicate with the InfoPath community.

MSDN Forums: SharePoint - InfoPath Forms Services
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=1206&SiteID=1
This forum is another place you can ask questions about Forms Services.