Enterprise Web Architecture and Performance Shennon Shen & Scott Carey --- Plumtree Software Inc.

Who are we Shennon Shen Ph.D. Lead Performance and Scalability Engineer Plumtree Software Scott Carey Sr. Performance Engineer Plumtree Software

Agenda Enterprise Web Architecture Performance Tuning and Monitoring

What is the Enterprise Web

The Enterprise Web

The Enterprise Web integrates diverse back-end systems

The Enterprise Web Enterprise Web applications can automatically include services such as collaboration and content management

Develop New Services In Any Environment Developers can create components of Enterprise Web applications on any platform and integrate them using Web Services

Manage Applications Through Scalable Framework Enterprise Web applications are secured, delivered and managed through the portal’s application spaces, tailoring each application to its audience

Enterprise Web Architecture

Enterprise Web Suite Architecture Cross-platform: deploy with your existing platforms Heterogeneous environments: Java, COM,.Net, Perl, Cold Fusion HTTP-based Web Services model for integration points Fault tolerant: deploy distributed applications with confidence Distributed components for isolation of network, application faults Embedded load balancing, failover on integration tier Highly scalable: deploy to many users cheaply n-Tier architecture serves hundreds of thousands of users Proven linear scalability through Web farm architecture Parallel orchestration of remote services via Parallel Portal Engine The Enterprise Web creates user experiences from many components and applications running on many platforms.

Portal Server Must Be 100 Percent Reliable Portal Server handles end-user requests Portal Server cannot break with the weakest link Isolated from faults in back-end systems Isolated from faults in network Isolated from bad portlet code Portal Server scales linearly with additional hardware

Automation Server Manages Scheduled Tasks Automation Server handles asynchronous processes Crawling for new content Synchronizing users from external sources Publishing content on a schedule Deleting broken, expired links Automation Server protects Portal Server CPU Multiple servers support round-robin load balancing

Database and Search Servers Store Metadata Databases can be clustered for high availability Search server stores search index Search server supports replication for high availability

Applications Scale Individually Content and Collaboration can run on separate servers in high use scenarios Uploaded content resides in a scalable repository

Extensibility Through HTTP-Based Web Services Portlets: build applications by adding services to personal and community pages Search Services: search external indices in parallel with the portal Crawler Services: add content from external repositories Authentication Services: authenticate users against external directories Profile Services: import user attributes

Performance and the Enterprise Web

Performance Challenges in the Enterprise Web Environment Loosely Coupled n-tier Architecture Not just a Web Application Complex System of Layers and Dependencies E.g. Caches, queues, latencies, updates Performance appearance vs performance reality

Performance and Enterprise Web Components Understand how each hardware and software component fits into the architecture Portal components Partner Components Custom Applications UI Customizations Hardware and Network Infrastructure

Enterprise Web Uniqueness Deployments vary tremendously Centralized vs. Globalized High Bandwidth vs. Low Bandwidth Many Users, Many Groups vs. Many Users, Few Groups Typical User Visits Daily vs. Typical User Visits Weekly Typical User is an Employee (internal) vs. Typical User is a Customer (external) No “One Size Fits All” Performance Solution in the Enterprise Web

System Level Tests Test Database with Users, Documents, and Objects Randomized User Scenarios that touch many parts of the Portal LoadRunner Performance, Scale, and Stress tests

Data Dependency Performance can vary widely depending on: Number of Documents Size of Documents Security on Documents Number of Users Complexity of User and Group relationships Number of Portlets, Communities Environment Unique combinations of the above

Data Dependency Examples: Document size and security relationships affect Search and Database performance. User and Group size and complexity affects all security queries. Test database with 100,000 Documents and 50,000 Users Database CPU use can vary by a factor of 6 on Directory Folder page loads depending on the relationship between Cards, Folders, and Security. Search CPU use can vary by a factor of 5 depending on the size of the documents and the number of search results returned per average query.

Customer Environments vs. Performance Test Environment Performance Test Environment Controlled Environment Static, non-evolving Database Not constrained by external factors Customer Deployments UI Customizations Various SSO solutions Custom applications, portlets 3 rd party applications, portlets Every network is unique

Example of Performance Issues Examples: Slow portlets or back end system cause long page load times and starve the portal of available execution threads Portal Server is tuned incorrectly, limiting server capacity or increasing response times SSO product on insufficient hardware or configured incorrectly, delaying all logins for several seconds. Network Bandwidth causes long page load times and document load times. Consider HTTP compression.

Tuning and Monitoring the Enterprise Web

Enterprise Web Tuning Many components to possibly tune Each component has tuning possibilities, but not every component needs tuning Which components need tuning is deployment specific

Enterprise Web Tuning Synchronous and Asynchronous n-tier distributed architecture Tuning the Enterprise Web is similar to ordinary Web Application tuning, however determining what needs to be tuned is not easy Tuning typically adjusts the following at each node: Concurrent request capacity (worker threads, connections) Resource consumption (RAM, Disk) Caching Disabling unused infrastructure features

Enterprise Web Tuning Example: Tuning Memory Usage Java App Servers: Java heap size tuning: More Memory is not always better Java heap configuration can strongly impact performance..NET Web Applications Heap Size is configured automatically However Web Applications are restarted by.NET if they use too much memory.NET machine.config file memoryLimit attribute controls this behavior

What to Expect from Tuning Don’t expect much unless the component is a known performance bottleneck In short, use the “80/20” rule

Enterprise Web Monitoring Monitoring the health and performance of the Enterprise Web is critical Occasionally analyze data to locate usage trends that may require attention Use historical data to rule out causes of performance issues that arise

Challenges in Enterprise Web Monitoring Monitoring is not always easy Each application or component may have different monitoring interfaces Database, application server, and network specialists involved are often on different teams with varied priorities Every system integrated may have a different expert How to collate all the data? Who knows enough about the system as a whole to interpret it?

Monitoring Sources Plumtree logs Performance Monitor Counters (Windows) Top, vmstat, sar, and other UNIX tools IIS and App Server logs System Event Logs Log analysis tools Search Server logs HP OpenView, IBM Tivoli, CA Unicenter, others

Summary Understand the enterprise web architecture and its components Understand the layers and dependencies of your deployment Locate problems by identifying what is not the problem first Monitor Enterprise Web usage and trends Tune only what needs tuning

Q/A Questions?

Enterprise Web Applications Software that defines Information Processes Services Single user experience Difficult to tailor to audiences Software built from Components of traditional applications Reusable services from different app servers Foundation services: content, search, collab Many experiences, shared platform Rapidly tailored to audiences’ needs Traditional ApplicationEnterprise Web Application