Measuring WCF request on client and server

Question

Is there a way to measure time that request spends on WCF Host in a reliable way? 
On client I can do it by comparing two DateTime objects that are created before and after WCF service call.

What I have already done is: I have turned on trace on WCF Host and I have investigated it with SvcTraceViewer. 

What I did afterwards, is I had compared request time on client (time that application spends in WCF Service call) with durations from trace file. To my suprise I came accross such a results:
- client usually spends 15 seconds in service call
- according to trace file from server , request usually consumes about 3-4 seconds

My question is : what is happening with 15-4=11seconds? Is it time needed to encode/decode message and transfer it (I use 100MB LAN). My point is, that durations from client and server are preety confusing - I mean, difference is huge.

Thanks, Paweł

Answer 1

Hi,
   What is  your Binding,Service Mode,Security Mode and Server information?
Did you use security in data transmittion?
How is your Datasize?

All these were important to the Test result.

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Frank Xu Lei--谦卑若愚，好学若饥
专注于.NET平台下分布式应用系统开发和企业应用系统集成
Focus on Distributed Applications Development and EAI based on .NET
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Answer 2

Hi Pawel,

As for the WCF's processing from client to service, I suggest you have a look at the following document which provide a detailed explanation on WCF extension points and the entire processing pipeline. Thus, you can have ideas on those stages that may take significant time in the entire request/resposne processing lifecycle.

#Understanding Windows Communication Foundation Extensibility
http://weblogs.asp.net/andresv/attachment/689792.ashx

Also, for measuring program execution time, the visual studio profiling tools can help on .NET application's performance measurement(such as get hot functions or long running functions):

#Profiling WCF/WF Applications with VS Performance Profiler
http://blogs.msdn.com/wenlong/archive/2007/12/04/profiling-wcf-wf-applications-with-vs-performance-profiler.aspx

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