I’ve had the pleasure of working for many diverse employers and clients. A number of times I’ve been on a team working to resolve misbehaving software/servers. Part of the job is digging through logs. Another part is load testing specific workflows looking for knots or bottlenecks in the process. Still another part is analyzing each query for suboptimal performance.
There can be many factors that contribute to performance problems. Mike Brunt, Systems Guru at Alagad, has the skills to quickly analyze an application and tune it for proper efficiency. Mike has been posting on the Alagad blog for some time now. I find his posts to be informative and to show an uncommon depth on complex topics. Mike has an ability to simply explain tough subjects.
After reading his latest post, I was struck by how much I do not know. I understand, at a base level, how the JVM allocates memory and that changing the allocated memory can improve application performance. I don’t pretend to have the experience needed to diagnose problems and fix them by providing more appropriate settings.
Organizations that rely on critical web applications should pay attention to server performance. While performance problems can be mitigated, to an extent, by increasing the hardware running the system, adding hardware brings additional expenses in the form of hardware, software licenses, maintenance efforts, increased power consumption and less available room in the server racks.
If you run into server performance issues, keep in mind the professionals in our community that specialize in diagnosing and repairing server performance. There is more to server performance than code and database queries!