Section 6 of 6

Profiling Tools

🎯 What You'll Learn

MiniProfiler
Application Insights
dotnet-trace
BenchmarkDotNet
SQL Server Profiler

MiniProfiler

Lightweight profiler for ASP.NET Core applications.

Install Package Bash

dotnet add package MiniProfiler.AspNetCore.Mvc
dotnet add package MiniProfiler.EntityFrameworkCore

Program.cs C#

builder.Services.AddMiniProfiler(options =>
{
    options.RouteBasePath = "/profiler";
}).AddEntityFramework();

var app = builder.Build();

app.UseMiniProfiler();

_Layout.cshtml HTML

<head>
    <mini-profiler />
</head>

Application Insights

Azure's application performance management service.

Install Package Bash

dotnet add package Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.AspNetCore

Program.cs C#

builder.Services.AddApplicationInsightsTelemetry();

appsettings.json JSON

{
  "ApplicationInsights": {
    "InstrumentationKey": "your-key-here"
  }
}

dotnet-trace

Command-line tool for collecting performance traces.

Install Tool Bash

dotnet tool install --global dotnet-trace

Collect Trace Bash

# List processes
dotnet-trace ps

# Collect trace
dotnet-trace collect --process-id <PID>

BenchmarkDotNet

Powerful benchmarking library for .NET.

Install Package Bash

dotnet add package BenchmarkDotNet

Benchmark Example C#

using BenchmarkDotNet.Attributes;
using BenchmarkDotNet.Running;

[MemoryDiagnoser]
public class ProductBenchmarks
{
    private List<Product> _products;

    [GlobalSetup]
    public void Setup()
    {
        _products = Enumerable.Range(1, 1000)
            .Select(i => new Product { Id = i, Name = $"Product {i}" })
            .ToList();
    }

    [Benchmark]
    public List<Product> FilterWithWhere()
    {
        return _products.Where(p => p.Id > 500).ToList();
    }

    [Benchmark]
    public List<Product> FilterWithFor()
    {
        var result = new List<Product>();
        for (int i = 0; i < _products.Count; i++)
        {
            if (_products[i].Id > 500)
                result.Add(_products[i]);
        }
        return result;
    }
}

// Run benchmarks
BenchmarkRunner.Run<ProductBenchmarks>();

SQL Server Profiler

Monitor SQL queries generated by EF Core.

Enable Sensitive Data Logging C#

builder.Services.AddDbContext<InvenTrackDbContext>(options =>
{
    options.UseSqlServer(connectionString)
        .EnableSensitiveDataLogging() // Development only!
        .LogTo(Console.WriteLine, LogLevel.Information);
});

Performance Checklist

Cache frequently accessed data: Use in-memory or distributed caching
Use async/await: For I/O operations
Optimize queries: Use Include, AsNoTracking, projections
Enable response caching: For static content
Profile regularly: Use MiniProfiler or Application Insights
Monitor SQL: Check generated queries
Benchmark critical paths: Use BenchmarkDotNet

Key Takeaways

MiniProfiler: Lightweight profiling for dev
Application Insights: Production monitoring
dotnet-trace: Performance trace collection
BenchmarkDotNet: Micro-benchmarking
SQL logging: Monitor EF Core queries
Profile early: Find bottlenecks before production

🎉 Part XVII Complete!

Congratulations! You've completed Part XVII: Performance & Caching. You now understand:

✅ In-memory caching (IMemoryCache, expiration, eviction)
✅ Distributed caching (Redis, SQL Server, serialization)
✅ Response caching ([ResponseCache], cache profiles)
✅ Async best practices (async all the way, avoid blocking)
✅ EF Core performance (Include, AsNoTracking, projections)
✅ Profiling tools (MiniProfiler, Application Insights, BenchmarkDotNet)

Your applications are now fast and scalable! ⚡