Response Compression Middleware In ASP.NET Core

ASP.NET Core 1.1 has an inbuilt Response Compression Middleware for compression, which by default uses GZIP compression. In simple words, GZIP is a technique, which is used for the file compression and decompression for faster network transfer.

All the modern Browsers support response compression. Using GZIP Compression is the best approach to reduce the response size and provide better speed for transferring the files over the network.

Enable GZIP compression in ASP.NET Core

Let's first install GZIP in our ASP.NET MVC Project, using NUGET Package Manager.

Step 1

Right click on ASP.NET Core and select Manage Nuget Package.

 

Step 2

Browse Microsoft.AspNetCore.ResponseCompression.

 

Once ResponseCompression is installed, we need to configure it.

Let's open Startup.cs file and add the code given below in ConfigurationService method.



Code snippet 

// This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to add services to the container.
        public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
        {
            // Add framework services.
            services.AddDbContext<ApplicationDbContext>(options =>
                options.UseSqlServer(Configuration.GetConnectionString("DefaultConnection")));

            services.AddIdentity<ApplicationUser, IdentityRole>()
                .AddEntityFrameworkStores<ApplicationDbContext>()
                .AddDefaultTokenProviders();

            //Add ResponseCompression as Service

            services.AddResponseCompression();

            services.AddMvc();

            // Add application services.
            services.AddTransient<IEmailSender, AuthMessageSender>();
            services.AddTransient<ISmsSender, AuthMessageSender>();
        }

By default, ASP.NET Core uses GZIP compression. Now, let’s add this middleware to HTTP pipeline, so add the line of code given below in Configure method of Startup.cs.

Remember to add Compression middleware before other middlewares, which serves the files.

 

Code snippet 

// This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to configure the HTTP request pipeline.
        public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IHostingEnvironment env, ILoggerFactory loggerFactory)
        {
            loggerFactory.AddConsole(Configuration.GetSection("Logging"));
            loggerFactory.AddDebug();

            if (env.IsDevelopment())
            {
                app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
                app.UseDatabaseErrorPage();
                app.UseBrowserLink();
            }
            else
            {
                app.UseExceptionHandler("/Home/Error");
            }
            app.UseStaticFiles();
            app.UseIdentity();
            // Add external authentication middleware below.
            //Compression middleware before other middlewares which serves the files.

            app.UseResponseCompression();

            app.UseMvc(routes =>
            {
                routes.MapRoute(
                    name: "default",
                    template: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");
            });
        }

So far we have installed and configured Response Compression in ASP.NET Core Application.

 

Creating dummy data for Test

 

Lets create a Test API to assess the data.

My TestAPI looks like, as shown below.

 

 

 

Code snippet 

//[Route("api/TestAPI/Get")]
       [HttpGet]
       public IEnumerable<string> Get()
       {
           List<string> data = new List<string>();
           for (int i = 1; i <= 100; i++)
           {
               data.Add("ID :" + i.ToString());
               data.Add("Name :" + i.ToString());
               data.Add("Address :" + i.ToString());
               data.Add("Email :" + i.ToString());
               data.Add("Telephone :" + i.ToString());
           }
           return data;
       }

Application execution

Lets run the Application and navigate to API.

 

In my case, it is http://localhost:51381/TestAPI/Get  

 

Case I

 

When Response Compression is disabled.

(Comment below lines in Startup.cs) 

• services.AddResponseCompression(); (ConfigureServices method)
  
• app.UseResponseCompression(); (Configure Method)

 

Case II

 

When Response Compression is enabled.

(UnComment below lines in Startup.cs)

• services.AddResponseCompression(); (ConfigureServices method)
  
• app.UseResponseCompression(); (Configure Method)

 

 

 

Comparision

	Response Compression Disabled	Response Compression Enabled
Transferred data	6.4 KB	1.4 KB
Finish time	32 ms	14 ms
Load time	135ms	81 ms

 

Summary

Thus we learned,

• How to install Response Compression library in ASP.NET Core.
• How to enable Response Compression as middleware.
• How to transfer the data over the network by compressing. 
• Decrease Transfer and Load time of the data. 

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