IIS Worker Process Thread Count

Summary

An Internet Information Services (IIS) worker process is a windows process (w3wp.exe) which runs Web applications, and is responsible for handling requests sent to a Web Server for a specific application pool. Typically, there is more than one instance of w3wp.exe process on a Web server. Monitor checks the number of threads for w3wp process that has a maximum number of threads at the time of probe.

Alert is triggered only when number of thread count for worker process is above threshold for specified number of consecutive samples (NumberOfSamples parameter).

Configuration

The following configuration parameters are customizable:

• CriticalThreshold - Critical threshold value in percent. Default value is 120.

• IntervalSeconds - The recurring interval of time in seconds in which the monitor is started (the default value is set to 300 seconds).

• NumberOfSamples - Number of consecutive sample values considered before generating an alert. For example set this parameter to 3 if alert should be generated only when number of thread count for worker process is above threshold for 3 consecutive monitoring intervals.

• SyncTime - The synchronization time specified by using a 24-hour format. No default value specified.

• WarningThreshold - Warning threshold value in percent. Default value is 100.

Causes

The number of threads in worker process often increases when the load is too high.

Resolutions

To reduce the load, consider adding additional StoreFront servers to the server group in order to distribute the load across more nodes.

To see the number of threads for an IIS Worker Process, see the " Server Performance” view.