Problem
I set up a new instance of MS SQL Server Reporting Services, but I noticed that it starts up very slow and I have to wait for ages to access the site. I also noticed that it is always slow when it has not been used for a certain period of time.
Solution
The reason behind is that we have to wait for the application pool to spin up. During each start up, the SSRS web service reads and decrypts the rsreportserver.config file, it has to physically open up a socket connection between the two servers since the connection pool is empty, log into the database instance, etc. Also the web service has to make RPC calls into the Windows Service to get the encryption keys. There is an idle timeout value which forces the application to shut down after 20 minutes by default. We can tweak this timeout setting to have the application always up and running. There are two different methods and the first is applicable only to SSRS 2005.
Method 1 – SSRS 2005 only
First start Internet Information Services Manager from Control Panel -> Administrative Tools. Navigate to your server instance on the left side pane and expand it. You will find the Application Pools. Right click on it and choose the Properties option from the menu.
Choose the Performance tab in the Application Pool Properties window and you will see that the default setting Idle Timeout is 20 minutes.
There are two ways to disable the idle timeout:
- uncheck the checkbox in front of the setting or
- set it to 0.
With the above described settings I managed to reduce the average response time of our SSRS instance by around 10%. The performance gain is more visible when we run the first report on a certain day. Earlier it took 3-4 minutes to generate, but now it is ready in a few seconds.
Method 2 – SSRS 2005 thru 2012
You can modify the “RecycleTime” parameter in RSReportServer configuration file for SQL Server 2005-2012. The RSReportServer.config file can be found at the following location depending on your MSSQL version:
- SQLServer 2005:
\Reporting Services\ReportServer - SQLServer 2008:
\Reporting Services\ReportServer - SQLServer 2008 R2:
\Reporting Services\ReportServer - SQLServer 2012:
\Reporting Services\ReportServer - SharePoint mode:
The RecycleTime parameter value is in minutes, the default value is 720 (12 hours).
Next Steps
- Keep this setting in mind the next time for any Reporting Services installation.
- Check out these related resources on MSSQLTips:
