The document discusses various tools used for monitoring and optimizing performance in a Blackboard environment. It recommends using Toad as the primary database access tool for tasks like script execution and basic DBA work. It also recommends using PAO (Performance Analysis for Oracle) as the primary monitoring tool for its warehousing capabilities and ability to compare workloads over time. Foglight is highlighted as a favorite tool for its lightweight instrumentation, ability to define rule-based traces to identify slow method calls and SQL statements, and other features. Configuration examples are provided for optimizing Java settings like heap size and garbage collection with aggressive -XX options.

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2. Did you all get a chance to read that? As a public company we need to have
our disclosure statement before allfrom the ground youon true enterprise
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ontechnology --- please speak with our Generalyou continue to provide your
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11. In 32-bit world, made an argument for clustering. With rise of 64-bit, plus
greater stability with –XX options making a pitch away from clustering.
Almost not necessary with virtualization, larger heaps and load-balancing.
Becomes relevant again when we remove Web Server from architecture.
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21. Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ale2000/1275120868/
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22. Complete list of –XX Options:
http://sevenseconds.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/the-most-complete-list-of-
xx-options-for-java-6-jvm/
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23. In our most recent benchmark we settled on a 4GB JVM and 1000
threads/interfaces. It was sufficient to support 5000+ active/live sessions
with exception response times (99% under 3s, 95% under 2s and 90% under
1s.). Latency vastly improved with aggressive –XX options. Below is an
example of options we use from our wrapper.conf:
# Initial Java Heap Size (in MB)
wrapper.java.initmemory=4g
# Maximum Java Heap Size (in MB)
wrapper.java.maxmemory=4g
wrapper.java.additional.18=-Xloggc:C:/Bb/blackboard/logs/tomcat/gc.log
wrapper.java.additional.19=-XX:NewSize=1g
wrapper.java.additional.20=-XX:MaxNewSize=1g
wrapper.java.additional.21=-XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC
wrapper.java.additional.22=-XX:+UseParNewGC
wrapper.java.additional.23=-XX:ParallelGCThreads=(set this equal to the
number of CPUs available for generational collections)
wrapper.java.additional.24=-XX:+PrintGCDetails
wrapper.java.additional.25=-XX:+PrintGCDateStamps
wrapper.java.additional.26=-XX:+AlwaysPreTouch 23
wrapper.java.additional.27=-XX:ParallelCMSThreads=(set this equal to the

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30. Easily configured Virtual Machine by cloning VMs using XenCenter
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32. Toad is our primary database access tool. While we use SQLPlus for many
operations, Toad provides a robust, easy to use visual interface that we use
for script execution and basic DBA tasks. Many of the basic views that come
with Toad are helpful in quickly spotting issues such as misplaced indexes in
the wrong tablespaces, as well as viewing the size of tablespaces and data
files. We also use it for script execution of routine database maintenance
functions.
PAO (Performance Analysis for Oracle) is our primary monitoring and
instrumentation tool we use in Blackboard performance engineering. There
are many reasons for using the tool set, but our primary reason is the
warehousing capabilities. Our secondary reason for using the tool is the
ability to compare timelines. We can take a baseline of activity, make a
change to our configuration and perform a simple comparison of the
workloads.
Foglight is by far my absolute favorite performance instrumentation tool. We
use the Tomcat cartridge for Foglight primary as it’s a lightweight
instrumentation framework and imposes minimal overhead. I like a number
of aspects, but my favorite three are the following:
1. I love that I can define a simple rule engine to perform a trace of the
application code, including collecting SQL literals. Better yet, I can step into
the trace and do a fast find by exclusive time to see what method call or SQL
statement was responsible for consuming the most time. 32

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