Performance Analysis for Java™ Websites [Paperback]

Stacy Joines (Author), Ruth Willenborg (Author), Ken Hygh (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201844540 | ISBN-13: 978-0201844542 | Publication Date: September 20, 2002 | Edition: 1

Performance is a serious issue. A website must be able to handle the demands of users today, as well as adapt to increasing demands in the future. A website's responsiveness to customers has a direct effect on the success of an organization. Many developers struggle with the complex issues of website performance. This book is a timely guide for enterprise website developers and QA teams. The authors combine their experience analyzing and improving hundreds of websites and show how to conduct an effective performance analysis. They demonstrate how to solve common yet difficult problems, how to monitor tests, and analyze the data collected. Exploring common website types such as brokerage, e-commerce, and B2B, they discuss different performance needs, as well as how to design a performance test for each type of website. They use IBM WebSphere as the example Java application server, yet the content transfers easily to others such as BEA's popular WebLogic.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

How well a Web site performs while receiving heavy user traffic is an essential factor in an organization's overall success. How can you be sure your site will hold up under pressure?

Performance Analysis for Java™ Web Sites is an information-packed guide to maximizing the performance of Java-based Web sites. It approaches these sites as systems, and considers how the various components involved, such as networks, Java™ Virtual Machines, and backend systems, potentially impact overall performance. This book provides detailed best practices for designing and developing high-performance Java Web applications, and instructions for building and executing relevant performance tests to gauge your site's ability to handle customer traffic. Also included is information on how to use the results of performance testing to generate accurate capacity plans.

Readers will find easy-to-understand explanations of fundamental performance principles and terminology. The book runs through performance profiles for common types of Web sites, including e-commerce, B2B, financial, and information exchange. Numerous case studies illustrate important ideas and techniques. Practical throughout, the book also offers a discussion on selecting the right test tools and troubleshooting common bottlenecks frequently revealed by testing.

Other specific topics include:

Performance best practices for servlets, JavaServer Pages™, and Enterprise JavaBeans™

The impact of servlets, threads, and queuing on performance

The frozen Web site danger

Java™ Virtual Machine garbage collection and multithreading issues

The performance impact of routers, firewalls, proxy servers, and NICs

Test scenario and script building

Test execution and monitoring, including potential pitfalls

Tuning the Web site environment

Component monitoring (servers, Java™ Virtual Machines, and networks)

Symptoms and solutions of common bottleneck issues

Analysis and review of performance test results

Performance Analysis for Java™ Web Sites not only provides clear explanations and expert practical guidance, it also serves as a reference, with extensive appendixes that include worksheets for capacity planning, checklists to help you prepare for different stages of performance testing, and a list of performance-test tool vendors.

0201844540B08142002

About the Author

0201844540AB04292002

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Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (September 20, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201844540
• ISBN-13: 978-0201844542
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #452,778 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good vendor-neutral analysis, November 8, 2002

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Performance Analysis for Java™ Websites (Paperback)

You have a website with problems. The front end is a set of http servers that invoke Java application servers to run servlets and JSPs. The servlets read and write, maybe via Enterprise Java Beans, to a relational database. The website might be financial (like eTrade), or a portal (like Yahoo), or an information site (like google), or a B2C commerce site (like Amazon) or a C2C (like eBay). You want to measure and improve key metrics like response time, throughput and caching. Security may also be important, but for efficiency, you only want to encrypt the minimum possible. You also probably have a firewall or two; in the latter case, you have a DMZ. And in this case, you often put the http servers inside the DMZ and the application servers and database behind the DMZ. Plus, you anticipate and hope for (and dread) heavy usage. So you also have a caching proxy server and router in the DMZ, where the router will load balance incoming requests to the http servers. So you have many different pieces of hardware and software, usually from multiple vendors. The database could be from Oracle or IBM or Sybase. The application servers could be IBM's Websphere or BEA's Weblogic or the freeware from jBoss. Perhaps the http servers are Apache freeware.

The key business logic may be written in java and running on the application servers. There are tons of books on java. But how to test and optimise the entire system? Do you have to hire expensive consultants? Maybe not. Try first looking at this book. Written in fact by 3 IBM consultants.

You might be thinking, "Is this some going to be some smarmy sales pitch?" Where the take home message is buy only IBM and you will achieve nirvana?

The book does not unfold that way. The authors describe the various problems at a vendor neutral level. The examples (and screen captures) are drawn from several vendors. The writing is clear and rises above being buried in the minutae of specific code. The book is for both the programmer and the systems administrator. This is not really a programming book per se. Rather, it deals with test and design strategies for optimising those abovementioned metrics. Emphasis is placed on quantifying results and on incremental ramp up, where you install hardware and software in stages, measuring at each stage so that you isolate the effect of just that stage. Key issues like network bandwidth, network traffic analysis and vertical and horizontal scaling are the purview of sysadmins. If you are a sysadmin who knows some java, but that's not really your cup of tea, and are confronted with these issues, try this book.

IBM, through its alphaworks division and Websphere, has one of the largest development efforts in java. (Comparable to Sun's, in fact.) This book is good evidence of that.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like a visit from an expert., January 23, 2003

By 

Douglas Rowe (the Columbia Java Users Group, Columbia, SC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Performance Analysis for Java™ Websites (Paperback)

A well executed tutorial and reference to all things performance. The books takes you through all of the elements of performance in a J2EE system. Starting with simple things that can get the most bang for the buck, to more complex changes to help you optimize your environment. Several good case studies present the process in a great "show me how" style. Well worth the money for anyone doing development in enterprise Java.

The authors are evidently experienced and write in a nice confident, but not overly technical, manner. They don't make any assumptions about the readers skill level in Java or web servers. Each step is explained well from the reasoning for the change to the finished product. They do an especially good job of helping you identify improvements to your site.

Highly recommended.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unique and invaluable, June 30, 2004

By 

Mike Tarrani "www.tarrani.com" (Deltona, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Performance Analysis for Java™ Websites (Paperback)

The team of authors who wrote this book have two things going for them - in-depth knowledge of performance analysis, and, most importantly, the ability to impart that knowledge in a crystal clear manner.

I like the way this book starts out, showing the contrast between a bricks & mortar store and its online equivalent. This introduces the basics - throughput, transaction, page and user rates, response times and states. More than an easy to follow introduction, it contains all of the key elements of performance analysis, doled out in easy to understand chunks, and sets the stage for the rest of the book.

Every facet of a typical environment is covered, including Java server performance factors, external and internal factors related to networking, load balancers, protocol behavior, and Java internals. The chapter on performance profiles of common web sites is especially useful. Different site types are characterized in a set format that shows caching potential (of the site type), any special considerations, and specific performance testing considerations. This allows you to go directly to the type of site you are going to test, get the relevant information, then proceed to conduct the testing, which is covered in subsequent chapters.

The chapters on testing begin by showing how to develop the test plan, associated test scripts, and select the right tools to support the testing. The areas covered in these chapters are comprehensive. Actual test execution and results analysis are covered in equal detail, using examples and scenarios. One especially useful chapter is 13, Common Bottleneck Symptoms, which is useful to track the cause of observed results that do not match expected ones during testing.

This book goes beyond testing, though - it also covers capacity and performance planning, which is normally a discipline onto itself. Again, excellent advice and coverage of key points. The appendices are an invaluable collection of templates, worksheets and checklists.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It exemplifies top notch writing, is well illustrated, and is technically accurate, and based on proven approaches.