1

Our development team has 14 small applications deployed to Tomcat 5.5 currently (moving to 6.0 shortly). I say small because the number of users for each app is low. I'm wondering what performance metrics and indicators I should be looking at to decide when it is time to introduce an additional application server.

Aside from memory usage and CPU utilization, what should I look out for? How do I know when it's time to scale up or out?

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
3

I would be monitoring:

  • average HTTP response times
  • output of iostat (or whatever counterpart on Windows if you're running Win)
  • network saturation
  • possible thread deadlocks (not sure how multithreaded your app is)
  • database load, if there is one

Generally it is hard to advise when to scale up/out, each situation is different. But it is always worth to have a plan - in case if your customer base will double in the next few months.

Scaling up is usually cheaper (to a point). I recommend this site for scalability-related stuff.

Improve this answer
1
  • Thanks. FYI for those wondering - I've learned that the Windows equivalent of iostat is perfmon. Type "perfmon" into the run dialog to start it up.
    – Mike G
    Commented Nov 16, 2010 at 14:53

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.