33

Tuning the Oracle Application Server

Middle Tier

Copyright © 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Objectives

After completing this lesson, you should be able to do

the following:
• Describe Oracle Application Server performance
methodology
• Monitor and tune the performance of Oracle HTTP
Server (OHS)
• Monitor and tune performance of OC4J processes
and applications
• Monitor and tune the performance of OracleAS
Web Cache
• Monitor and tune OracleAS Forms Services

33-2 Copyright © 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Performance Tuning Methodology

• Performance tuning involves

– Determining measurable goals of performance
– Translating the goals into observable metrics for
components
– Regular monitoring of metrics
– Evolving optimization techniques
– Implementing the appropriate tuning solution
• Some of the parameters used in evaluating
performance are:
– Response Time, System Throughput, Wait Time
• Periodic monitoring helps in anticipating and
overcoming performance challenges.

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 Monitoring the Performance of Oracle
Application Server

• The Oracle Application Server performance

metrics are measured automatically and
continuously.
• These metrics can be accessed using the
Application Server Control.
• Application Server Control is the central tool to
configure, manage monitor and tune the
components of Oracle Application Server.
• Other tools such as dmstool

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 OracleAS Hi-Av Tool (iHAT)

• iHAT is a monitoring tool that provides a graphic

snapshot of all processes managed by OPMN:
– Grid View: Provides status of all OracleAS
instances in a single window
– Instance View: Provides the complete process
topology view of Oracle Application Server
– Routing View: Monitors routing relationships
between OHS and OC4J
• To invoke iHAT, use the command:
java –jar ihat.zip <host>:<port>
For example:
java -jar ihat.zip edcdr2p1:6003
• A full list of iHAT options can be obtained with:
java -jar ihat.zip -h

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 Notes Page Only

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 iHAT: Using Web Browser

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 Other Monitoring Tools

Oracle Application Server also provides the following

monitoring tools:
• AggreSpy
– A prepackaged servlet that reports performance
metrics
– Reports performance data for an OracleAS instance
– Can be used only when the home OC4J component
is active
• dmstool
– Is located in the $ORACLE_HOME/bin directory
– Allows you to monitor a specific, a set, or all
performance metrics
– Allows you to specify a reporting interval

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 Comparison of Monitoring Tools

• Application Server Control:

– Is the preferred tool for management and
monitoring
– Is capable of enterprisewide monitoring
– Includes detailed as well as summarized
information as required
• AggreSpy can be used:
– For monitoring OC4J and OHS only
– To obtain detailed information about specific
component
• dmstool:
– Command Line tool
– Useful for support

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 Monitoring the Oracle HTTP Server

• Monitoring of the Oracle HTTP Server involves:

– Assessing the workload
– Investigating Oracle HTTP Server errors
– Categorizing Oracle HTTP Server problems
• Use the Performance region to drill down to
detailed monitoring.
• When assessing work load, ensure that you are
assessing a representative load.

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 Detailed Monitoring of OHS

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 Notes Page Only

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 Detailed Monitoring of OHS Logging

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 Notes Page Only

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 Categorized Monitoring with
Application Server Control

• Application Server Control allows you to analyze

the performance metrics in three categories:
– Module Metrics
– Virtual Host Metrics
– Child Server Metrics
• This categorization enables you to isolate
performance bottlenecks and fix them.

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 Module Metrics

• If OracleAS Web Cache is enabled, then the use of

http_core.c should be reduced.
• If mod_oc4j.c shows high activity, then drill down
to the J2EE Applications.

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 Virtual Host Metrics

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 Monitoring Child Server Processes

You should analyze the OHS child server processes if

your application server experiences delays or
deadlocks.

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 Monitoring OHS Using AggreSpy

http://<host:port>/j2ee/servlet/AggreSpy

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 Managing Server Processes

Directives in httpd.conf that affect OHS processes:

• StartServers
• MaxClients
• MaxKeepAliveRequests
• MaxRequestPerChild
• MaxSpareServers
• MinSpareServers
• Timeout
• KeepAlive
• ThreadsPerChild (on Windows platforms)

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 Notes Page Only

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 Monitoring Processor Usage

• On UNIX, you can use the sar or mpstat utilities

to monitor the processor usage.
• On Windows, you can use the Performance
Monitor.

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 Configuring OC4J for Performance

Configuring of OC4J for improving the performance

includes:
• Providing adequate memory resources
• Caching and reusing database connections
• Managing concurrency and limiting connections
• Load balancing
• Database monitoring and tuning

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 Monitoring OC4J Process or Instance

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 Monitoring J2EE Applications

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 Setting Java Options

You can set the following Java Options:

• Server Option
• Heap Size
• Stack Size
• Concurrent IO

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 Notes Page Only

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 Setting Up Data Sources

Performance depends on the settings for:

• connection pooling
• Maximum and minimum open connections
• Cached connection inactivity timeout
• Wait for free connection timeout
• Connection retry interval
• Maximum number of connection attempts
• JDBC statement cache size

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 Notes Page Only

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 Setting Up Open Connections

In a pooled data source:

• max-connections is the upper limit of number
connections to data source
• cacheScheme determines how max-connection is
interpreted
• Default cacheScheme is DYNAMIC_SCHEME
• min-connections is the level of connections
maintained
• inactivity-timeout specifies the time out for
inactive connections
• wait-time specifies the time to wait for obtaining
data source connection

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 Setting Up Open Connections

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 Setting Up Connection Attributes
Using Application Server Control

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 Tips for Tuning Servlets

1. Monitor the load on your server with respect to:

– The metric serviceRequest.avg
– The metric processRequest.avg
2. Watch for unused sessions observing:
– sessionActivation.active
– sessionActivation.completed
– session-timeout
3. Watch for slow servlet loading
– Enable load-on-startup for servlets that require
extra time to load.

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 Notes Only Page

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 Loading Servlet Classes at Startup

• Servlet classes are loaded when the first request

is made.
• This can imply varying performance for requests.
• The load-on-startup facility enables classes to
load when the application starts up.
• You can use the Application Server Control to
specify if a Web module is loaded at start up.

33-35 Copyright © 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Tips for Tuning JSPs

The JSP developer can improve JSP performance by:

• Using the JESI and the Web Object Cache tag
library
• Tuning JSP code
The administrator can improve JSP performance by:
• Changing JSP parameters
• Using the main_mode parameter

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 Using the main_mode parameter

The main_mode parameter for each OC4J instance

controls the way run time operation is performed.
• recompile: This is the default value. The
dispatcher will check the timestamp of the JSP.
Retranslate and execute all reload if the timestamp
is different.
• reload: The dispatcher will check if any classes
have been modified since loading. Reload if the
timestamp is different.
• justrun: The dispatcher will not check if any
classes have been modified since loading.

33-37 Copyright © 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Tips for Tuning EJBs

• The timeout parameter specifies the maximum

time taken for a transaction to finish before it is
rolled back due to a timeout.
• The default value for this parameter is 60,000
milliseconds (60 seconds).
• The timeout should be set to a value greater than
or equal to the timeouts used within individual
transactions.

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 OC4J-Specific Tips for Tuning EJBs

• OC4J specific attributes applying to all EJB are

stored in orion-ejb-jar.xml.
• The parameter call-timeout specifies maximum
time to wait before calling the EJB method.
• Default call-timeout for entity bean is 900000
ms and for session beans 0 (always).
• The parameter max-tx-retries specifies the
number of times to retry a transaction.
• The default max-tx-retries is three for both
session and entity beans.

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 Configuring orion-ejb-jar.xml

The orion-ejb-jar.xml contains the configuration

for EJB modules.
• cache-timeout: Time for which inactive stateless
session bean remains in the pool
• call-timeout: Time to wait for an EJB
• copy-by-value: To copy all parameters in EJB
calls
• max-tx-tries: Number of times to retry a failed
transaction
• persistence-filename: File in which session
details are stored for use across server restarts

33-40 Copyright © 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Factors that Affect the Caching Efficiency

Some of the factors that affect the caching efficiency

are:
• Available resources: Memory and bandwidth
• Latency
• Response time
• Web Cache size
• Size of documents
• Cacheability rules
• Frequency of invalidation and nature of content
• Personalization and versions

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 Notes Page Only

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 Tuning Network Timeouts

• There are two types of Network Timeouts:

– Keep-Alive Timeout for Browser – default 5 seconds
– Origin Server Timeout – default 3600 seconds
• Keep Alive Timeout and Keep Alive need to be
configured for the Browser and Web Cache.
• Tune time outs based on the load tests.

Cache-Specific Configuration > Network Timeouts.

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 Connection Limit

To help determine a reasonable Connection Limit,

consider following factors:
• The number of concurrent clients to serve
• The average size of a page and the average
number of requests for page
• Network bandwidth
• How quickly a page is processed

Use the Resource Limits link in

Web Cache Manager

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 Cache Size Determination

• Cacheability rules determine if a document is to be

cached
• Memory for document body is allocated in
– 4KB chunks if the document size is less than 4KB
– 32KB chunks otherwise
• HTTP response headers use 4KB

Use the Resource Limits link in Web

Cache Manager

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 Invalidation Performance

To expedite invalidation, consider the following:

• Use basic invalidation requests for invalidating
single object
• Use substring matching for invalidating multiple
objects in advanced invalidations
• Use invalidation indexes to improve performance
of content traversal

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 Invalidating Multiple Objects
Using SUBSTRING

To send an advanced invalidation request with

substring matching do the following:
1. Specify the OTHER element in a manual
invalidation request that uses the
ADVANCEDSELECTOR element.
2. Specify the NAME attribute to use a value of URI,
BODY, or QUERYSTRING_PARAMETER.
3. Specify the TYPE attribute to use a value of
SUBSTRING.

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 Notes Page Only

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 Using Indexes to Improve Invalidation
Performance

• If invalidation requests use the

QUERYSTRING_PARAMETER, then index would be
helpful.
• Using index, Web Cache categorizes objects in
cache, and performs faster lookup.
• To specify an invalidation index, add an
INVALIDATIONINDEX element to the
webcache.xml.

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 Monitoring OracleAS Forms Services

• Use Application Server Control to monitor Forms

Services.

• Click the Forms instance to display the Forms

Services page to view information about:
– Status
– Configuration
– Load
– Response

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 Tuning Forms Services

• Run-time pooling for Forms Services provides

quick connections at server peak times.
• Set prestartRuntimes to true to enable run-time
pooling and pre start.
• Specify the number of run-time executables to be
prespawned with the parameter
initialRuntimes.
• Set the timeOut to 0 if you want all the spawned
executable to exist even when inactive.
• Set the minRuntimes to the number of spawned
executables to exist even when inactive.

33-51 Copyright © 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Summary

In this lesson, you should have learned to do the

following:
• Describe the performance methodology
• Monitor and tune the performance of Oracle HTTP
Server (OHS)
• Monitor and tune performance of OC4J processes
and applications
• Monitor and tune the performance of OracleAS
Web Cache
• Monitor and tune OracleAS Forms Services

33-52 Copyright © 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.