Improving Connection Manager Performance

Increasing CM Login Performance

To increase CM login performance, see the following topics:

Using CM Proxy to Allow Unauthenticated Log On

Use CM Proxy to provide unauthenticated connections to BRM, typically for providing connections for incoming mail messages. Connections made through CM Proxy do not require you to log on, which increases performance.

Note:

Only connections that do not require authentication should use CM Proxy.

To increase security, you can restrict the types of operations performed by CM Proxy by specifying the opcodes that perform allowed operations.

To use CM Proxy:

Open the CM Proxy configuration file (BRM_home/sys/cm_proxy/pin.conf).
Configure CM Proxy according to the guidelines in that file, and save the file.

The following are some of the more important entries:
- Use the oplist entry to specify the opcodes that can be performed by CM Proxy.
- Use the allowed entry to specify the hosts that can use CM Proxy.
- Use the queue manager entries to manage front-end and back-end connections. See "Improving Data Manager and Queue Manager Performance".
- Use the standard connection entries to connect to a CM or CMMP (Connection Manager Master Process). See "About Connecting BRM Components".
Start CM Proxy. See "Starting and Stopping the BRM System".
Open the configuration file for each application you want to use CM Proxy. See "About Configuration Files".
Change the cm_ptr entry to point to the machine running CM Proxy and change the login_type entry to 0 (no login name or password required).

Turning Off Session-Event Logging

By default, the CM writes a session-event object for each client connection, but you can suppress the creation of these session objects if you do not need these records of logins. You can turn off session-event logging for some CMs for better performance while keeping this feature for other CMs dedicated to applications that require session objects, such as the mail and terminal servers.

To turn off session-event logging:

Open the CM configuration file (BRM_home/sys/cm/pin.conf).
Change the value for the login_audit entry to 0 and ensure that the entry is not commented.
Stop and restart the CM.

Turning Off the Checking of Logons and Passwords

When an application tries to log on to BRM, the CM verifies the service specified by the application, asks for a login name, and verifies the login password. To improve performance, set up the CM to not ask for a login name or password. See "Configuring the CM to Verify Application Logins with the Service Only".

To turn off login name and password verification:

Open the CM configuration file (BRM_home/sys/cm/pin.conf).
Change the value for the cm_login_module entry to read:
```
- cm   cm_login_module   ./cm_login_null.extension
```
where extension is the file type specific to your operating system: so for Solaris, Linux. For example:
```
- cm   cm_login_module   ./cm_login_null.so
```
Stop and restart the CM.

Load Balancing CMs

You can use two methods for balancing the load among multiple CMs:

You can use a CMMP to provide additional reliability and to balance the load among multiple CMs. See "Using Connection Manager Master Process to Improve Performance".
You can provide a simple failover system for connections to the CM by giving the application a list of CMs on the system. If the first CM in the list is unavailable, the application tries the next CM.

For example:
```
- nap  cm_ptr  ip  cm_host1  11960
- nap  cm_ptr  ip  cm_host1  11961
```
If the CMs are on separate machines:
```
- nap  cm_ptr  ip  cm_host1  11960
- nap  cm_ptr  ip  cm_host2  11960
```
Note:

You can point to multiple CMMPs rather than to individual CMs. If the CM provided by the first CMMP is not available, the application asks for a CM from the second CMMP.

For example:
```
- nap  cm_ptr  ip  CMMP_host1  11959
- nap  cm_ptr  ip  CMMP_host2  11959
```

Specifying the Number of Connections to CMs

The cm_max_connects entry in the CM configuration file (pin.conf) tells the CM how many client applications can connect at one time. If client applications are having trouble connecting to the database, you can increase the number of connections. Performance degrades when too many CMs are running on the same machine, depending on the system load.

The maximum number of connections is 1000.

Note:

Normally, cm_max_connects is commented out. This type of connection is best handled by CM Proxy. See "Using CM Proxy to Allow Unauthenticated Log On".

Open the CM configuration file (BRM_home/sys/cm/pin.conf).
Edit the cm_max_connects entry:
```
- cm   cm_max_connects  300
```
Save and close the file.
Stop and restart the CM.

Setting the CM Time Interval between Opcode Requests

When a client application requests a connection, the CM spawns a child process to handle the connection. The child process or thread communicates with the client application by receiving requests in the form of opcodes.

By default, the child process or thread waits infinitely for each opcode request, but you can set a time interval after which the child process or thread terminates if no request has arrived.

Open the CM configuration file (BRM_home/sys/cm/pin.conf).
Edit the cm_timeout entry.
```
- cm cm_timeout 5
```
The value of this entry specifies the time interval in minutes.
Save and close the file.
Stop and restart the CM.