ASP performance problems

[Larry]

I've implemented a web application on an NT/IIS platform using Python
and Active Server Pages.

Most of the heavy logic and database access is contained in modules
that I import on the ASP pages, so the pages are pretty clean. It's
usually a function call that returns a list that I loop thru to build
tables and what not.

My problem is that when heavier usage occurs the web server starts to
really bog down. It's almost like a slowly growing thing where it gets
slower and slower until it's unusable. It's not a problem with the
database because when the production web server is crawling I can
still use the development web server and everything is lightning fast.
When I look at the task manager the CPU is really pegged, jumping
around between 50% and 100%.

Has anyone encountered this or does anyone have any thoughts? I
realize IIS/ASP isn't the optimum deployment environment but this is
killing me that vbscript app we had ran so much better.

One question I have is the use of "del" and how important that is. I
was under the impression objects would get swept up when I exited the
function so I don't use "del" very often at all. Is it possible IIS is
somehow becoming less efficient because of this?

Thanks in advance.