Optimizing HW and OS for powershell performance

[Honza Participant Topics: 3 Replies: 7 Points: 53Rank: Member]

Hello.

I was looking for some articles about optimizing HW and OS for PowerShell performance, I always end up with articles about optimizing PowerShell code. I do not argue with the need of optimizing the code. But is there a way how to also optimize HW and OS (system variables?) to make PowerShell run as optimized as possible? An example:

I am processing IIS logs and I need to do combination without repetition. I tried to simplify the code to keep the idea without sending unnecessary code ($collection1 and $collection2 are the same):

PowerShell

      foreach ($collrow1 in $collection1) {         $ip1 = $collrow1.cip         $collection2.RemoveAt(0)         foreach ($collrow2 in $collection2) {         $ip2 = $collrow2.cip         if ($ip1 -eq $ip2) {             ....         }         }        }

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foreach ($collrow1 in $collection1) {         $ip1 = $collrow1.cip         $collection2.RemoveAt(0)         foreach ($collrow2 in $collection2) {         $ip2 = $collrow2.cip         if ($ip1 -eq $ip2) {             ....         }         }        }

I tried using workflow and foreach -paralel

PowerShell

      foreach ($collrow1 in $collection1) {         $ip1 = $collrow1.cip         $collection2.RemoveAt(0)         <strong>foreach -parallel</strong> ($collrow2 in $collection2) {         $ip2 = $collrow2.cip         if ($ip1 -eq $ip2) {             ....         }         }        }

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foreach ($collrow1 in $collection1) {         $ip1 = $collrow1.cip         $collection2.RemoveAt(0)         <strong>foreach -parallel</strong> ($collrow2 in $collection2) {         $ip2 = $collrow2.cip         if ($ip1 -eq $ip2) {             ....         }         }        }

The results were tragic. The output was the same = both versions produced same result, same data. But that “optimized” version ran 10 times longer. It actually makes sense. The system was Windows Server 2019 running in Hyper-V with single vCPU. I just made things worse. I am going to add vCPU so that system runs 16 vCPU. But I have no idea if it helps, or it is too much and useless. Does PowerShell really use it?

I am also trying to chew this article:

PowerShell Multithreading: A Deep Dive

It goes slowly because I am not a programmer.

But my question is: I have Windows Server 2019 with 16CPU, 32GB RAM, almost no applications running. Can I do anything with the OS or HW to make PowerShell run faster?

Thank you

Honza

[random commandline Participant Topics: 5 Replies: 349 Points: 632Rank: Major Contributor]

If I understand correctly, you want to combine IIS logs and search the logs for a string?  Give an example of what you want the output to look like.

[Honza Participant Topics: 3 Replies: 7 Points: 53Rank: Member]

No, I just need to know if there are any recommendations regarding HW and OS. Something like:
Use as much CPU as possible or do not use more than X cores, because …

Use as much RAM as possible or do not use more than X because …

Set this ENV variable to allow best PowerShell performance …

Does anything like this exist?

[Rob Simmers Participant Topics: 17 Replies: 1951 Points: 3,987Rank: Community Hero]

Not sure there are performance setting for Powershell per se and typically performance is totally a ‘it depends’. If we wanted to multi-threading, we would test and see how many threads a system can handle, but this would depend on what you’re doing. If you were performing multiple transactions against something like Exchange or API’s, you’re going to hit a login limit or throttling. Outside of that, having the latest versions typically have security and performance upgrades. My .02

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