Tuning Linux systems for Tivoli Storage Manager server performance

There are a number of actions that can improve performance for a Tivoli® Storage Manager server that is running in a Linux environment.

Before you begin

Review system requirements for the installation of a Tivoli Storage Manager server to ensure that you have the required specifications for your operating system. For more information, see http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21243309.

Procedure

Most enterprise distributions come with many features, however most of the time only a small subset of these features are used. Disable features that are not used.
Use the vm.pagecache_limit_mb and vm.swappiness options to release memory from the file system cache.
Linux systems can cache much file system data, which can take away memory that is needed for Tivoli Storage Manager server and DB2® processes. As a root user on Linux, you can limit the amount of memory that is allowed for caching file data by setting the vm.pagecache_limit_mb kernel parameter to 1024. Also, set the vm.swappiness kernel parameter to 0. For example:
```
linuxbox:/ # sysctl vm.pagecache_limit_mb           # to display current value
vm.pagecache_limit_mb = 0                           # (0 means no limit)
linuxbox:/ # sysctl -w vm.pagecache_limit_mb=1024   # to change at runtime
vm.pagecache_limit_mb = 1024
linuxbox:/ # sysctl vm.swappiness
vm.swappiness = 60
linuxbox:/ # sysctl -w vm.swappiness=0
vm.swappiness = 0
```
To apply these changes for all restarts of the operating system, edit the /etc/sysctl.conf file and add vm.pagecache_limit_mb=1024 and vm.swappiness=0.