Domino server and application performance in the real world
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The document provides tips and strategies for optimizing Domino server performance, with a focus on addressing disk I/O bottlenecks. It recommends separating database files onto different physical disks based on I/O needs, avoiding journaling file systems for transaction logs, optimizing RAID configurations, and addressing inefficient views and design patterns that can degrade performance. Specific issues covered include transaction logging, indexing, database design, and application usage patterns.
Domino server and application performance in the real world
- 2. English is the only language I speak -- Unless you count programming languages I will try to speak clearly, but if I am moving too quickly, or too slowly, please make some kind of sign, so I can adjust!
- 3. We will all point at you Set all noise making toys to “Stun” please If you need to type on a laptop or a Blackberry – move toward the back please
- 4. Administrator & Developer since version 2.0 Products NCT Search, NCT Compliance Search, and NCT Simple Sign On, and now Second Signal Services Site Performance Reviews Application Development Administrative Overhaul Security Review & Penetration Testing IBM Lotus Beacon Award Winner Firefighter Lieutenant of Cumberland, Maine – Engine 1 In firefighting, just like Server Administration it's all in the planning
- 5. Performance with a Big Picture approach Defining Performance In User Terms Key Performance Choke Points General Considerations Common General Tweaks Application Specific Strategies Finding Your Own Choke Points Summary
- 6. A face lift may make you look better for a while, but it won’t cure cancer
- 7. No Single INI Variable -- #1 Server Fix Focus On The Basics! No Super Storage Network No Ultimate Network Switch No Omnipotent Third Party Application No God-like Consultant Not Even Me!
- 8. Performance Problems Are like snowflakes Individually, they don’t matter much at all You notice them only once they stack up For example: Poorly Performing Disk I/O + Agents Changing Many Documents + Many Views to Update == Very Slow System These kinds of problems create a feedback loop, which amplifies the problems
- 9. It’s not how you feel, its how you look. Darling, you look marvelous! -- Billy Crystal
- 10. If the user must wait for something, it will always seem slow – no matter how fast you make it. Nothing is worse than an hourglass cursor and a bar slowly moving across the screen Except NOT having the bar
- 11. Move anything not immediately required by the user to a background process Cache Commonly Referenced Data Don’t pop-up modal dialog boxes * More on this when we talk about application design in a few minutes!
- 12. We’re going the wrong way, but we’re making excellent time!
- 13. Bandwidth vs. Latency Bandwidth How big around is the pipe? Latency How long is the pipe from end to end? Even light takes several minutes to reach us from the Sun. That’s latency Latency impacts “Chatty” connections – Notes can be chatty
- 14. Ping times larger than 100ms are “high” latency. WAN links, Satellite links, Modems, and VPN’s are all prone to latency issues Multi-Hop connections across buffered routers and firewalls can introduce latency Encryption software can introduce latency
- 15. Avoid opening and closing many documents Avoid DB Lookups by caching common values Example: Use a db open script to write common lookup values to a local environment variable each time the user opens the database Use “RunOnServer” to move complex agent work to the server, the read the result from a profile document
- 16. This is the #1, #2, and #3 Root performance problem on Domino Server Nearly any other performance problem is made many times worse if the Disk I/O is overwhelmed Most Domino Servers are not well optimized for Disk I/O
- 17. One “Data” drive is used for too much databases, index rebuilds, temporary files, swap files, and even transaction logging Transaction Logging used in conjunction with journaling file systems Poor choice of RAID configurations Too heavy a reliance on Storage Area Networks
- 18. Many of the following recommendations balance performance with safety You need to assess each as it relates to your overall data strategy
- 19. ALWAYS put your transaction logging files on a separate drive Move your view indexing temporary files to another drive (INI Parameter) Consider moving disk-intensive applications to their own drive If you must have memory swapping, give it its own drive Active Log Files
- 20. Things that load once and are not re-accessed frequently do not need to be on high performance resources The Operating System Application Program Files Archive Log Files
- 21. One Disk may have multiple partitions Different partitions are NOT different spindles All the partitions on the same drive, share the same read-write head and are impacted by data access as a single entity. Multiple drives in a RAID array don’t count A RAID array is treated by the system as a single drive. By definition, data is written across the whole array The “Best-Case” is multiple drives on different drive controllers
- 22. Most RAID arrays are configured to improve redundancy, not necessarily speed. Not all data requires redundancy Loss of some data is very low risk Memory Swap Files Indexing scratch space Temporary files Cache files Inexpensive SATA drives can be used for a real performance gain Solid State Drives – Possible future use for very high speed, relatively small footprint data, like transaction logging
- 23. Consider the benefits of a SAN Highly redundant storage Single backup point Consolidated free space Performance? I have yet to see a SAN that truly outperforms local high speed disks Not all Domino Data needs these features Transaction Logs – Consider local RAID if possible Indexing Scratch Space – Use Cheap, Local, Fast Drives If you’re already clustering Domino, only one of the clustered machines may need to be on the SAN
- 24. Windows NTFS – And you can’t turn it off! Linux ext3 file system IBM AIX, SUN Solaris, and Apple OSX all make use of Journaling File Systems Not all the same – but generally speaking, disk WRITES are doubled Don’t put Transaction Logs on Journaling File Systems – its redundant, and redundant again.
- 25. RAID Configuration Data is written twice (at least) Formatted with a JFS Data is written twice Using Transaction Logging Data is written twice 2 x 2 x 2 = 8 Times the Data Writes Now think about that on a pair of clustered servers
- 26. These should be obvious More RAM is better – Up to what is supported Depending on the OS, you may need to partition your server to take full advantage Drive Cache – If your OS lets you manage it, you should work to really optimize this Most Anti-Virus Software is EVIL when it runs against Domino Databases Make sure your AV is Domino aware!
- 27. Developers really LOVE when administrators give them feedback like this
- 28. Why are you using “NoCache”? Cache times are very small, does your data really change on a second by second basis? Can be very chatty – a killer on high latency networks, but not as bad for web apps Requires more views to be up to date – big performance hit in databases that change a lot Many lookups on the same form, to the same place for different values? Use it once to get the UNID, then use @GetDocValue Use a profile document, or local environment variables updated in the dbopen script to store commonly looked up data
- 29. For application performance tuning, views are the first, second, and third place to look View indexing is very disk intensive – and can amplify disk I/O shortcommings To update a view, a full database scan often needs to happen. That can be very very slow on large databases Any view performance problem grows exponentially with the volume of data These problems are often not caught in test
- 30. If your view column (bad) or selection formula (worse) uses @Now, @Today, etc.. You’re hurting performance Time dependant views are “Always” considered out of date and must be re-indexed for every use If you’ve got one, you’ve got more. Developers that do this tend to repeat the pattern
- 31. Use a FOLDER instead Run a agent to select the right documents for the folder on a periodic basis – Daily for “@Today” or Hourly for @Hour(@Now), etc. This will still cause an update, but only once each time the update happens Use Categories Categorize documents based on a stored date value, then use a “show single category” option on the view If you MUST use a time specific view, set its update frequency to the absolute least frequent you can It will still update for each user access, however, unlike a folder which is static
- 32. Consider a column formula with 10 steps Now consider 100,000 Documents in it That column must execute 1 Million steps for each view index rebuild – just in that column Many column formulas are much more complex, and serve many times that many documents
- 33. Create Hidden Fields on the Document At “Save” time, compute the value that would be on the view column in the hidden fields Display the value of the hidden field as the view column formula. What was a complex formula executing hundreds of thousands of times is now a single field value
- 34. Consider a database with 100,000 documents Consider that database having 10 views Consider each view having 5 columns Each time data in the database is updated, every selection formula has to be checked to see if the view is impacted Every view has to be updated by the indexer
- 35. Embed The View on a Form or Frameset Categorize the view in the same way you woul distinguish the different views Use Show Single Category to differentiate the data to the user Compute text values on the form to result in very different data in each category if needed Use multi-column hidden views so that he same view can serve multiple lookup needs Make sure your developers coordinate so that duplicate lookup views are not created
- 37. Calculate and Store a HASH value A HASH is a short, nearly unique, value crated by applying a mathematical formula to a set of data. For example, you can hash an entire paragraph and get a short string as a hash value. The same source will always produce the same hash, but any change to the source will produce a different hash. You can tell if a document has changed, simply by comparing the HASH value
- 38. Andrew’s Magic Hash story If you fall asleep, please don’t drool on the table C’mon, it’s a true story!
- 39. Read View Entries – Not Documents Turn off view updating while working with documents in the agent NotesDatabase.Delayupdates=True Turn off MIME conversion when working with mail documents NotesSession.ConvertMime=False Run agents periodically, not “Before New Mail Arrives” – that slows down the router
- 40. Placing blame, for fun and profit!
- 41. Look for Disk Performance First Start Simple: Are the drive lights sitting on for long periods of time? Use the operating system’s tools Performance monitor in Windows, “top” in Linux, etc. Processes like “logasio” which is for transaction logging will show up Check for network latency and bandwidth Start Simple: Use Ping to check latency Use Domino’s DDM and Statistics tools See Gabriella Davis’s current and past sessions on these tools
- 42. Admit it – you really came here looking for cool INI settings like DominoRunFaster=11
- 43. Here’s some that I use MailLeaveSessionsOpen=1 For busy mail servers, can speed up delivery Update_Fulltext_Thread=1 Move full text indexing to its own thread, distinct from the indexer – This is the costs to “runfaster” I have found Ftg_use_sys_memory=1 Use memory outside the Domino server HttpQueueMethod=2 According to Kerr, this is a must have for busy web servers Use These Together: SERVER_NAME_LOOKUP_NO_UPDATE=1 Tells the server to use the old index while the new one catches up DEBUG_ENABLE_UPDATE_FIX=8191 Fine tunes when the directory indexes get refreshed
- 44. NSF_Buffer_Pool_Size_MB= Very powerful, but very complex Check the Lotus Notes Knowledge base Starts at around 300 Not as critical as it used to be Check your success with this console command show stat database.database.b* Don’t check too soon after a change, its only valid over time
- 45. Open this folder: {NotesProgramDirectory} \framework \rcp \eclipse \plugins \com.ibm.rcp.j2se .{Version} Edit the file: jvm.properties Change the line: vmarg.Xmx=-Xmx256m So that it reads: vmarg.Xmx=-Xmx512m Note: You can set it higher, but aim for about half of your available RAM Readers on my blog overwhelmingly report fantastic results with this one
- 46. Repeat After me: There is No “RUN_FASTER=1” Performance Isn’t Magic, its Planning Save the Disk I/O, Save the Server Latency is as critical as Bandwidth When in doubt, Blame the developer