Solaris Performance Problem

["Douglas E. Hornig" <do...@hornig.net>]

I have run into a strance performance problem with Tomcat that I am at a loss to figure out.  In a nutshell, when I run Tomcat (version 3.2.1, standalone) on a Solaris Sparc server and hit it with a Windows client, the minimum response time is is abount 0.2 seconds.  This is for a simple servlet that just returns some static data.  That may not sound like a lot of time but if a client makes several requests to the server it can add up fast.  If I run the server on a Linux PC that number is about 0.01 seconds or less.  I also get good performce if I use a Linux client and hit the Solaris server.

I have tried using different PC clients (different PCs, one running NT 4 and one with Windows 2000), different test programs (one in Java and one in Visual Basic) and it makes no difference.

I have tried using different Solaris servers, a 420R and an Ultra 5, neither with any kind of load.  I have tried different JDKs (1.2.2 and 1.3.0).  No difference.

I wrote a quickie standalone Java server for the Sparcs and their response time was very fast (< 0.01 secs).  The server reads a request, sends a reply, and closes the socket much like a web server would.

So the problem combination seems to be Solaris server with Tomcat and a PC client.  I know this sounds nuts but it's  totally repeatable and a very serious problem.  Does anyone have an idea what I can do to get to the bottom of this?

Thanks a lot.

Douglas Hornig
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Lebanon, NH

Re: Solaris Performance Problem

[John Gentilin <jo...@eyecatching.com>]

You might want to try and write a simple servlet that loops through
and prints out all the HTTP headers. I know the different browsers
send different information, probably not enough to  cause the difference
in speed but it may shed some light.

Also I am assuming you are doing the test from the same machine ??
If not you may want to look into DNS resolution. Sometimes the
logging mechanisms want to resolve the IP Address which is slower
if a name can not be resolved.

Are you running in stand alone mode (port 8080) or are you using
a Web Server (Apache). Make sure the problem is actually the Java
Server.

Also there is a big difference in the way NS & IE pull assets and
display. I have a servlet that serves up the assets as well as the
HTML (icons, images).  Original testing with IE no problem, then
I tested with NS and threading problems big time. Tough to troubleshoot
too. It seems that NS multitasks differently and will actually make many
requests at once.

Just my two cents
John G

"Douglas E. Hornig" wrote:

> I have run into a strance performance problem with Tomcat that I am at a loss to figure out.  In a nutshell, when I run Tomcat (version 3.2.1, standalone) on a Solaris Sparc server and hit it with a Windows client, the minimum response time is is abount 0.2 seconds.  This is for a simple servlet that just returns some static data.  That may not sound like a lot of time but if a client makes several requests to the server it can add up fast.  If I run the server on a Linux PC that number is about 0.01 seconds or less.  I also get good performce if I use a Linux client and hit the Solaris server.
>
> I have tried using different PC clients (different PCs, one running NT 4 and one with Windows 2000), different test programs (one in Java and one in Visual Basic) and it makes no difference.
>
> I have tried using different Solaris servers, a 420R and an Ultra 5, neither with any kind of load.  I have tried different JDKs (1.2.2 and 1.3.0).  No difference.
>
> I wrote a quickie standalone Java server for the Sparcs and their response time was very fast (< 0.01 secs).  The server reads a request, sends a reply, and closes the socket much like a web server would.
>
> So the problem combination seems to be Solaris server with Tomcat and a PC client.  I know this sounds nuts but it's  totally repeatable and a very serious problem.  Does anyone have an idea what I can do to get to the bottom of this?
>
> Thanks a lot.
>
> Douglas Hornig
> Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
> Lebanon, NH

Re: Solaris Performance Problem

[Tim O'Neil <ti...@xythos.com>]

At 02:24 PM 4/20/2001 -0400, Douglas wrote:
>I have run into a strance performance problem with Tomcat that I am at a 
>loss to figure out.  In a nutshell, when I run Tomcat (version 3.2.1, 
>standalone) on a Solaris Sparc server and hit it with a Windows client, 
>the minimum response time is is abount 0.2 seconds.  This is for a simple 
>servlet that just returns some static data.  That may not sound like a lot 
>of time but if a client makes several requests to the server it can add up 
>fast.  If I run the server on a Linux PC that number is about 0.01 seconds 
>or less.  I also get good performce if I use a Linux client and hit the 
>Solaris server.

It would be real easy to simply blame Windows for
this but the actual problem is more likely something
to do with the networking set up of the Windows machines.
I haven't seen poor performance with regard to Windows
and http that's any more than with Unix boxes.

I'd look at any differences between the way the two
platforms are connected to your network. Are the
Windows machines dhcp clients, what does a tracert  or
a ping tell you, compare that to the output of a traceroute
on the solaris boxes, etc. You may find that the routing
of the Windows machines is different and will need to be
adjusted.