Customer Reviews

Performance Analysis for Java™ Websites

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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.

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.

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.

What a great, pragmatic, deeply informative book. As a web application developer for 5 years and enterprise application developer for 20, I came to the book with considerable experience, yet I still learned a lot. And as a trainer and writer, I'm always looking for good books to recommend and this is one I do most highly.

Important to note is that it's also valuable for those developing ASP, ColdFusion, or PHP web sites, because the performance analysis approaches used by the authors (and tool discussions) are rather generic. You don't really need to understand Java to benefit considerably from their excellent explanations of the fundamentals of web application performance analysis and tuning.

That's not to take away from its unique value for Java developers. Clearly there are many specific aspects for them, but other developers will find that 80% of the book is perfectly useful and deeply informative.

I rate a book by how many notes I take as tidbits of useful info. And though I've used several load testing tools and even given seminars on the subject, I still learned much in every chapter.

/charlie

It takes a comprehensive look at the java performance analysis. It is very good at describing common bottlenecks be in architect, hardware (load balancing) , user interface etc.

Ideas are well received by our team and book provide food for thought on diverse topics. We have continuous integration testing and continuous inspection (and adaptation) for performance testing and this book was very helpful.

This is an excellent book, providing thorough coverage of performance analysis. Although this book is aimed at Java based sites, it would serve as a good primer for anyone learning how to tune a website with dynamic content. The authors assume the reader has only basic familiarity with internet technologies, and explains concepts as needed. After providing a basic theoretical grounding, the authors illustrate the concepts with a case study, going from simple to complex.

The book is well-organized and thought out, and presents its information in an understandable, easy to follow fashion. I particularly like the inclusion of the test and capacity planning forms in the appendix. This gives readers the chance to put the information to work, instead of just giving case studies or presenting only theory.

A highly recommended and informational book.

This book's title has "Java" in it (and book covers Java performance analysis very well), but large part of it is about web performance analysis approach and methodology that can be applied to non-Java web sites. This is a great resource and a must have for those who deals with performance of web sites. Simply look at the table of contents and you'll love it: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0201844540/ref=sib_rdr_toc/104-1411948-5301507?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S00H#reader-link

The book is exceedingly broad in scope and very practical in its coverage of performance topics in the java, servlet, JSP, EJB, J2EE, networking, firewall, web server and application server space. The do's and dont's and "where to look first" come from practice and practical experience. The book covers performance and characterization in the context of "Best Practices" and with reference to the Model View Controller Design Pattern and Struts. There is rich coverage of best of breed tools. This is ideal book for a very experienced software developer who is moving software performance and characterization. I would highly recommend it.

First of all this book is very practical. The authors have shared their in-depth knowledge on identifying performance bottlenecks, tuning and deployment of Java webs. The book is loaded with a lot of DOs and DON'Ts for your Java Web performance that will save you a lot of time and effort. The time spent reading this book is highly rewarding.

Secondly this book is incredibly methodical. It starts with a big picture and ends with a big picture. You will find many books that talk about Java tuning. However more often than not in a real life situation, the most difficult task is to find out where the bottlenecks are. According to the authors, a Java Web is a comprehensive system that includes components inside your firewall (such as HTTP server, App server, and DB server etc.) as well as outside your firewall (such as routers, load balancer, switch, etc.). The authors guide you through the maze of finding the bottlenecks by showing you what the common symptoms are and what the corresponding root causes will be. The book goes in-depth on how to plan, execute, and interpret effective performance testing. Reading through from chapter to chapter, you will find that you never lose track of what the chapter is about. If you are really short on time, you can actually just read the Introduction at the beginning and the Plan Sheets & Check List at the end. You will find it invaluable.

Check it out yourself!

One of the most difficult hurdles a QA new to performance testing can go through is shifting their testing methodology from specific to componenents to a balanced environment-wide perspective. This book helps guide the Architect or QA through the process of discovering HOW we look at metrics and WHY we use certain metrics over others. This is much more useful in the long run than rather just looking at WHAT to look at since this can vary depending on your specific infrastructure.

If your reading a RedBook on WebSphere Performance Tuning and you haven't yet figured out what your Peak Average Load is, your performance testing is doomed to fail. This book guides you on the right path to the methodology that will work for your testing. It provides test plan guidelines and even sample scripts. In addition, there are several guidelines for analysis and interpretation.

The book only requires a couple of things to be a truely complete performance testing guide in my opinion: More detailed information and guidelines for Performance Testing Failover situations and slightly more concise guide for scripting. For the type of sites that you'll use this book for, you'll most likely have more complicated scripts and script requirements.

Over all, this book provides a great introduction of the core concepts and outlines quite a few of the more overlooked requirements in this increasingly important field.