Web applications

Abstract

This report presents performance data for a test that compares the effects of stacking 200 WebSphere Application Servers.

The question is whether it is better to host all WebSphere Application Servers on a single (vertical stacking) z/VM guest, or distribute the servers across multiple guests (horizontal stacking). As an additional test, the use of shared mini-disks or a DCSS for the WebSphere installation was analyzed, to determine if there are criteria that favor one or the other setup.

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WebSphere Application Server Horizontal versus Vertical JVM Stacking Report

Creation date

February 2012

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The IBM Tivoli Provisioning Manager is an enterprise management application. It provides a centralized and intuitive interface to automate data center provisioning activities and manage IT resource life cycles, integrating with a variety of devices to enable highly accurate server provisioning and software deployments.

This paper describes results for Tivoli Provisioning Manager (TPM) version 7.1.1.1 on Linux on IBM System z10 using a variety of concurrent administrator workloads. It provides an analysis of the behavior of the two different provisioning interfaces, the Scalable Distribution Infrastructure (SDI) and the Deployment Engine (DE). A memory overcommitment study gives guidance on how to assess the trade-off between memory saving and performance impact.

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Tivoli Provisioning Manager Version 7.1.1.1: Sizing and Capacity Planning

Creation date

October 2010

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This study explores the performance of a WebSphere Application Server 6.1 system under a customer-like J2EE application workload. It includes a very detailed description of how the test environment was set up and how the systems were configured. The difference in performance behavior of the 31-bit and the 64-bit WebSphere versions is compared, and the impact of heap size and garbage collection is analyzed.

It was found that with a special scenario at the highest workload level, which utilized eight CPUs, the 64-bit WebSphere version with a large heap showed its strength. The CPU scaling is very linear, but with the high computing power of the IBM System z10, the network bandwidth becomes a critical factor. At the highest workload submission rate, for example, a 10 Gb Ethernet card was needed to manage the traffic from the workload generating clients.

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WebSphere on IBM System z 64-bit/31-bit Studies with J2EE Workloads

Creation date

September 2009

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The IBM Tivoli Provisioning Manager is an enterprise management application. It provides a centralized and intuitive interface to automate data center provisioning activities and manage IT resource life cycles, integrating with a variety of devices to enable highly accurate server provisioning and software deployments.

IBM Tivoli Provisioning Manager (TPM) 5.1.1 for Linux on System z has recently been made available as the first Linux-based 64 bit TPM version. The 64 bit version has been made available to remedy limitations that have been previously identified during extensive benchmark testing with the 31 bit TPM version.

This document provides results for the first TPM 64 bit on IBM System z10 benchmark. The benchmark sets new records for TPM, both for overall throughput and concurrency. For example, the benchmark shows that using TPM 5.1.1. 64 bit on IBM System z10 permits superior performance while using half the number of processors versus prior 31 bit benchmarks on IBM System z990.

For more information on Tivoli Provisioning Manager see http://www.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/prov-mgr/.

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Tivoli Provisioning Manager 5.1.1.1: 64 Bit System z10 Benchmark Results

Creation date

November 2009

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This paper analyzes parameter and configuration variations in a WebSphere Application Server cluster running the Trade workload when caching is enabled. We used a secure environment with a DMZ to protect the application servers against an uncontrolled external zone.

These are the most interesting findings:

• Any form for caching resulted in a significant throughput improvement over the no caching case, where Distributed map caching generated the highest throughput improvement.
• DynaChache disk-off load is a very interesting feature, which can significantly improve the performance with small caches without additional CPU cost.
• The z/VM VSWITCH LAN configuration resulted in higher throughput than the Guest LAN feature.
• The IBM System z10 system obtained a significant throughput advantage over the IBM System z9 system.
• We can highly recommend z/VM for environments such as this.

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Tuning WebSphere Application Server Cluster with Caching

Creation date

December 2008

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The paper gathers Linux end-to-end performance measurements for a WebSphere Application Server 6.1 environment. It shows how the set of products that is needed to run the Trade 6 benchmark on Linux for System z9 performs on a release-to-release basis.

These are the most important findings:

• RHEL 5.0 achieves a very good CPU scalability
  With 8 CPUs on the WebSphere LPAR we obtained a scaling factor of 7.5 times.
• We recommend using RHEL 4.5 or higher for WebSphere 6.1.

See also http://www.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/FLASH10648

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WebSphere Application Server 6.1 Base Performance

Creation date

September 2008

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The paper gathers Linux end-to-end measurements for all of the components in the path from the user accessing the WebSphere Application Server system to the database.

The paper shows how this set of products performs on a release-to-release basis, and how the performance can be improved.

The components studied are:

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)
• WebSphere Application Server
• Java
• IBM DB2 Universal Database on Linux for IBM System z or on z/OS

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WebSphere Application Server Base Performance

Creation date

December 2007

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This paper describes the end-to-end performance of a WebSphere Application Server 6.0.2 cluster environment, including firewall systems, Edge components such as WebSphere Load Balancer and the caching proxy server, and the Web server.

It uses a typical setup for application servers providing services into the Internet. The systems with the application server are protected by implementing a demilitarized zpnme (DMZ), which suppresses direct access from the Internet completely and allows only well controlled accesses to the servers via the proxy. The entire environment was set up with z/VM guests on z/VM 5.2.

Through the project, we gathered experience on how to analyze and tune a cluster environment on Linux on IBM System z using the Trade 6.0 (Trade) application. We also learned where some of the pitfalls can be found. We were trying to find the best configuration to achieve the highest throughput.

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End-to-End Performance of a WebSphere Environment Including Edge Components

Creation date

January 2007

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What do you do when you get a call from your customer, who says this:

“We have a WebSphere application running on Linux for zSeries, and its performance is bad”.

The following document describes a process to follow to help diagnose performance problems, and suggestions for resolving them.

The document is intended to be used by IBM field personnel working with the customer to diagnose such a problem, or by the customers themselves.

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How to Determine the Causes of Performance Problems with WebSphere Applications running on Linux for zSeries

Creation date

July 2004

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