I have a network traffic question, that I may get a lot of answers for. At work, I'm VPNing to a client's internal network where they have their stage SQL database. Every time I stage development (fixes/enhancements), I like to do a round of quick QA. When I run SQL queries in SQL Server Management Studio, things don't seem slow. But when I run their web application with the stage version of the web.config by using my local build, the lag is VERY slow when compared to using our company's dev SQL database web.config. file.
To give you a comparison, I start counting 1-1000, 2-1000, etc.. for one particular page. It takes 1.5 seconds to load the page with our dev web.config. But when using the stage web.config, I counted slightly longer than 8 seconds. I'm starting to move the application modules to using AJAX so I see some improvements on those pages, but the pages still have to load. So this really slows down my testing if I release a large package of updates.
If you can recommend some tools of diagnosing this slowness/lag, that's what I'm interested in. Also, if you can describe how I can troubleshoot it, that's what I'm looking for. I'm an .NET application developer, not a network administrator, so I wouldn't know where to begin on this one.
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Clarification from above (5/23/2011 update):
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Apparently, SQL Server Management Studio is also slow, so it's definitely the SQL connection across the networks. I did a quick ping on my local box when VPN'ed to the network where the *.234 Windows Server 2008 box sits. I then did another one from a different machine on the same network as *.235. So maybe there is no answer to this. They're using a T1 line, so could that be the issue. These times from the ping are extremely different.
On Remote Desktop on different machine, but different network machine. Pinging from same network as *.234 box:
C:\Users\Administrator>ping 192.168.2.234
Pinging 192.168.2.234 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.2.234: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.2.234: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.2.234: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.2.234: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Ping statistics for 192.168.2.234:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms
C:\Users\Administrator>
On Local machine when VPN'ed to machine I'm pinging. Pinging from different network as *.234 box.
C:\Windows\system32>ping 192.168.2.234
Pinging 192.168.2.234 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.2.234: bytes=32 time=856ms TTL=127
Reply from 192.168.2.234: bytes=32 time=717ms TTL=127
Reply from 192.168.2.234: bytes=32 time=561ms TTL=127
Reply from 192.168.2.234: bytes=32 time=708ms TTL=127
Ping statistics for 192.168.2.234:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 561ms, Maximum = 856ms, Average = 710ms
C:\Windows\system32>
Best Answer
When you use remote desktop, only the screen updates are being sent to your PC, so the traffic going across the VPN is minimal. In that scenario, the database call you are making from Remote Desktop TO SQL Server is actually happening on the local network on the other side of the VPN. Your machine is just getting the Remote Desktop screen changes.
When you contact the site through your Local Browser, you are pulling the entire result set across the VPN, which is much more data than your Remote Desktop session (remote desktop is pretty efficient and runs at something like 2-10kbps, depending on your settings).
The only way to speed things up in this case would be:
It's all an issue of bandwidth. Unless you are willing to invest serious money in a fast network connection between you and the remote host, you're going to have a hard time reaching speeds anywhere in the ballpark of what a LAN can do.