Tuning Hardware, Operating System, and Network Performance

The following sections describe issues related to optimizing hardware, operating system, and network performance:

When you examine performance, several factors influence how much capacity a given hardware configuration needs in order to support WebLogic Server^TM and a given application.

Table 1-1 provides links to information about hardware tuning and standardized benchmarks and metrics.

Table 1-1 Platform-Specific Hardware Tuning Information

Issue	For more information
Supported Configurations pages	The Supported Configurations pages are frequently updated and contain the latest certification information on various platforms.
Solaris	For BEA WebLogic Server and Solaris-specific details, Sun Microsystems SPARC Solaris 2.5.1, 2.6, 2.7 and Sun Microsystems SPARC with Solaris 8 on the Supported Configurations pages. See also Sun Microsystems Information.
Hewlett-Packard	For BEA WebLogic Server and HP-UX-specific details, see Hewlett-Packard HP/9000 with HP-UX 11.0 and 11i on the Certifications Pages. See also Hewlett-Packard Company Information.
Standardized benchmarks and metrics	The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation provides a set of standardized benchmarks and metrics for evaluating computer system performance.

Tune your operating system according to your operating system documentation. BEA certifies WebLogic Server on multiple operating systems. Table 1-2 presents links to further information about operating system tuning.

Table 1-2 Operating System Considerations

Issue	For more information
Supported Configurations pages	The Supported Configurations pages are frequently updated and contains the latest certification information on various platforms.
File descriptors	On the UNIX platform, each socket connection to the server consumes a file descriptor. You need to configure your operating system to have the appropriate number of file descriptors. See "Tuning Solaris File Descriptor Limits" on the Sun Microsystems SPARC Solaris 2.5.1, 2.6, 2.7 and Sun Microsystems SPARC with Solaris 8 Supported Configurations pages.
Solaris TCP tuning parameters	See "Setting Solaris Tunable Parameters" on the Sun Microsystems SPARC Solaris 2.5.1, 2.6, 2.7 and Sun Microsystems SPARC with Solaris 8 Supported Configurations pages.
Maximum memory for a user process	Check your operating system documentation for the maximum memory available for a user process. In some operating systems, this value is as low as 128 MB. Also, refer to your operating system documentation. For more information about memory management, see Tuning Java Virtual Machines (JVMs).
Using native I/O for serving static files (Windows only)	When running WebLogic Server on Windows you can specify that WebLogic Server use the native operating system call TransmitFile instead of using Java methods to serve static files such as HTML files, text files, and image files. Using native I/O can provide performance improvements when serving larger static files. See "Using Native I/O for Serving Static Files" for more information.

When the supply of network resources is unable to keep up with the demand for resources, performance degrades. Table 1-3 presents some issues to consider.

Table 1-3 Network Configuration Considerations

Issue	Consideration
Network hardware and software	If you have a problem with one or more network components (hardware or software), work with your network administrator to isolate and eliminate the problem.
Network bandwidth	Make sure that you have an appropriate amount of network bandwidth available for WebLogic Server and the connections it makes to other tiers in your architecture, such as client and database connections. See Determining Network Bandwidth.
LAN infrastructure	Your local area network must be fast enough to handle your application's peak capacity. If you have high network traffic that consistently exceeds the capacity of the available resources (for example, the hit rate on a Web server has reached its maximum value while the system is 100 percent busy), do one of the following: Redesign the network and redistribute the load Reduce the number of network clients Increase the number of systems handling the network load

Issue

Consideration

Network hardware and software

If you have a problem with one or more network components (hardware or software), work with your network administrator to isolate and eliminate the problem.

Network bandwidth

Make sure that you have an appropriate amount of network bandwidth available for WebLogic Server and the connections it makes to other tiers in your architecture, such as client and database connections.

See Determining Network Bandwidth.

LAN infrastructure

Your local area network must be fast enough to handle your application's peak capacity.

If you have high network traffic that consistently exceeds the capacity of the available resources (for example, the hit rate on a Web server has reached its maximum value while the system is 100 percent busy), do one of the following:

Redesign the network and redistribute the load

Reduce the number of network clients

Increase the number of systems handling the network load

A WebLogic Server machine requires enough bandwidth to handle all of its client connections. In the case of programmatic clients, each client JVM has a single socket to the server. Each socket requires bandwidth. A WebLogic Server handling programmatic clients should have 125-150 percent of the bandwidth that a similar Web server would handle. If you are handling only HTTP clients, expect a bandwidth requirement similar to a Web server serving static pages.

To determine the bandwidth required to run a Web server, you can assume that each 56kps of bandwidth can handle 7-10 simultaneous requests, depending upon the size of the content that you are delivering.

To determine whether you have enough bandwidth in a given deployment, use the network monitoring tools provided by your network operating system vendor to see what the load is on the network system. If the load is very high, bandwidth may be a bottleneck for your system.