Chapter 9. Reducing Time to Last Byte

The "time to last byte" is the time it takes to generate the .aspx file and move it across the Internet to the browser. While chapters 2 to 8 are concerned with speeding up the generation of the file, this chapter along with chapter 10 and chapter 11 deal with reducing the time required to move the .aspx file to the browser. Because Internet is relatively slow, it makes sense to speed up moving the page by reducing the number of bytes traveling over the wire. An additional benefit is that you pay less for bandwidth.

This chapter consists of three major sections:

• The Pinpointing bottlenecks section shows how to pinpoint a number of common bottlenecks that make your .aspx file bigger than it could be, including lack of compression of files being sent by the server, bloated ViewState, and excessive white space. This helps you find out which bottlenecks to fix and their priority, so that you can spend your time where it counts the most.

• The Fixing bottlenecks...