Server Hardware for Ofbiz hosting

[masionas]

hi Guys,

I have a couple of questions regarding  the best server configurations to run Ofbiz smoothly to handle about 100 000 hits per day.

1) What will be the best hardware requirements to achieve this?
2) We can go with either  Dual Core or Quad Core - will there be a noticeable difference in performance? In other words is it worth to go with Quad Core?
3) Will the 4GB of RAM be sufficient or better to go with 8MB?
4) I would appreciate on some sample hardware configs for ofbiz used on real production systems with busy websites.

Thank you  in advance.

Best Regards,
Michael

[David E. Jones-2]

Because customizations can dramatically change the performance  
characteristics of OFBiz it is a good idea to always do performance  
and load testing once development is complete.

That said... a decent mid-range server (dual processor, 4GB RAM for  
example) can typically handle a peak of about 100,000 page hits per  
hour, or that's what I use as a typical rule of thumb for early  
estimates. Typically the peak hours are concentrated into certain  
times of day, and as another rule of thumb I usually use an effective  
10 hour day for estimates, so that makes roughly 1,000,000 page hits  
per day.

In short your estimate of 100,000 page hits per day is WELL within  
what a single server can handle, even with the database and app server  
running on the same machine.

-David


On Sep 1, 2009, at 10:20 AM, masionas wrote:

>
> hi Guys,
>
> I have a couple of questions regarding  the best server  
> configurations to
> run Ofbiz smoothly to handle about 100 000 hits per day.
>
> 1) What will be the best hardware requirements to achieve this?
> 2) We can go with either  Dual Core or Quad Core - will there be a
> noticeable difference in performance? In other words is it worth to  
> go with
> Quad Core?
> 3) Will the 4GB of RAM be sufficient or better to go with 8MB?
> 4) I would appreciate on some sample hardware configs for ofbiz used  
> on real
> production systems with busy websites.
>
> Thank you  in advance.
>
> Best Regards,
> Michael
> --
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Server-Hardware-for-Ofbiz-hosting-tp25243388p25243388.html
> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>

[c.schinzer]

Typical production recommendations on a JVM level are:

   - max. ca. 1.5 GB per JVM (constraints according to
   http://java.sun.com/docs/hotspot/HotSpotFAQ.html#gc_heap_32bit)


   - 1-2 cores per JVM

Hence the JVM will limit your options more than OFBiz which runs inside.

BTW: I would be interested whether anyone has made experience with OFBiz
running in "split mode" i.e. e.g. frontend parts (ecommerce shop, orderenty)
running on a dedicated machine while all backoffice applications (accounting
etc.) would run on another dedicated machine.
Also, I would like to understand whether anyone runs active-active or
active-passive loadbalancing configurations or even clusters.

Thanks & regards


Carsten

[James McGill-5]

On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 2:42 PM, Carsten Schinzer
<[hidden email]>wrote:

> Typical production recommendations on a JVM level are:
>
>   - max. ca. 1.5 GB per JVM (constraints according to
>   http://java.sun.com/docs/hotspot/HotSpotFAQ.html#gc_heap_32bit)
>
>
That only applies to 32-bit JVM's, which probably only affects people
running Windows these days.

--
James McGill
Able Engineering

[c.schinzer]

Sorry James, that's not the reality. You would be surprised ...

I am running a Java hosting support group in my business life, and guess
what: Just because HotSpot could run 64 bit OS, most of the vendors do not
activate the 64bit version (moreover, as a matter of fact among the first
things in many smaller setups that I check for friends is to even change the
runmode from to use the -server option).

I strongly recommend to check the following document:
http://java.sun.com/docs/hotspot/HotSpotFAQ.html#64bit_platforms

namely this sentence:
   "If neither -d32 nor -d64 is specified, the default is to run in a *32-bit
environment*."

This means that if you are not making up your mind about 64bit or not
telling your JVM that you need 64bit mode, you will get the 32bit version
regardless what the OS can do.

Further, I can only see very few cases where more than 1.6 GB of Mem will
really be needed (consider that with the JVM's Garbage Collection, GC, you
have a good mechanism to make 1.6 GB suffice many many situations). If you
really think you need more than 1.6 GB, you will require 64bit mode; then
also consider that the GC needs decent tuning if you overly allocate Mem
(remember, in the simpler GC approaches, the JVM will be frozen for the
duration of the GC run and the larger the memory space, the longer this
takes).

Well, this could go on for lines and lines ... all I really want to
encourage is:

   - Be very specific with your runtime environment (e.g. ) just asking for
   the latest of hardware and the latest of JVM technology is not enough to
   peak out performance
   - make sure you understand your requirements vs your configuration
   - do not assume too much (if anything)
   - ask your provider (or your sysop) to provide you with the process
   command line of the running JVM process, because thats much easier to get
   than to browse the startup scripts and understand which option they will
   switch on or off.
   The full process command line can be easily achieved on Unix/Linux by
   typing ps -ax | grep java which will list out all running java processes on
   the console. If there is several jvms running, use path names to identify
   which one is yours.

Just a side remark:
We've made excellent experience with JVM 1.4.2_* in both, 32bit and 64bit
mode and we are still running ca. 1000 nodes in that configuration [... and
I am fully aware that this is not what developers want to hear, btw B-) ].
So also check whether there is any reason why you need more recent JVMs. (I
am making this comment without awareness whether OFBiz would require Java5
or later; can someone help on that?).

Also, I want to remind the group about my earlier questions re. clustered or
load-balanced OFBiz configurations out there. any?

Kind regards


Carsten


2009/9/3 James McGill <[hidden email]>

> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 2:42 PM, Carsten Schinzer
> <[hidden email]>wrote:
>
> > Typical production recommendations on a JVM level are:
> >
> >   - max. ca. 1.5 GB per JVM (constraints according to
> >   http://java.sun.com/docs/hotspot/HotSpotFAQ.html#gc_heap_32bit)
> >
> >
> That only applies to 32-bit JVM's, which probably only affects people
> running Windows these days.
>
> --
> James McGill
> Able Engineering
>

--

Best

Carsten Schinzer

Waisenhausstr. 53a
80637 München
Germany

[masionas]

So should I consider running VM/Ofbiz in 64bit mode if I go off with 4GB of memory? Anyone has a good experience with such setup, from the article about HotSpot they say no changes in code needed to run most java APIs in 64bit mode. Is it also true for Ofbiz? This all is to be on Linux Fedora Core. As the database we use PostgreSQL same server as ofbiz. So thinking on a new server/OS config I am on crossroad now which concept to go - either 32 or 64.

[Jacques Le Roux]

Thanks David

I put it in FAQ

Jacques

From: "David E Jones" <[hidden email]>

> Because customizations can dramatically change the performance  
> characteristics of OFBiz it is a good idea to always do performance  
> and load testing once development is complete.
>
> That said... a decent mid-range server (dual processor, 4GB RAM for  
> example) can typically handle a peak of about 100,000 page hits per  
> hour, or that's what I use as a typical rule of thumb for early  
> estimates. Typically the peak hours are concentrated into certain  
> times of day, and as another rule of thumb I usually use an effective  
> 10 hour day for estimates, so that makes roughly 1,000,000 page hits  
> per day.
>
> In short your estimate of 100,000 page hits per day is WELL within  
> what a single server can handle, even with the database and app server  
> running on the same machine.
>
> -David
>
>
> On Sep 1, 2009, at 10:20 AM, masionas wrote:
>
>>
>> hi Guys,
>>
>> I have a couple of questions regarding  the best server  
>> configurations to
>> run Ofbiz smoothly to handle about 100 000 hits per day.
>>
>> 1) What will be the best hardware requirements to achieve this?
>> 2) We can go with either  Dual Core or Quad Core - will there be a
>> noticeable difference in performance? In other words is it worth to  
>> go with
>> Quad Core?
>> 3) Will the 4GB of RAM be sufficient or better to go with 8MB?
>> 4) I would appreciate on some sample hardware configs for ofbiz used  
>> on real
>> production systems with busy websites.
>>
>> Thank you  in advance.
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> Michael
>> --
>> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Server-Hardware-for-Ofbiz-hosting-tp25243388p25243388.html
>> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>>
>