Deployment Best Practices

The default Joget installation comes with minimal performance configuration as it aims to cater for installation on small machines, e.g., a local development PC.

For production deployment on a server, the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), application server, database and operating systems should be tuned for performance. Actual real world performance depends on many factors. These include the deployment architecture, server and network specifications, complexity of the processes/apps, actual usage patterns by different users, etc.

This document presents some of the best practices in terms of performance tuning and optimization to get the best out of your deployment.

Important Note: These recommendations help to serve as general tips and guidelines, but in actual practice it would depend on each deployment’s unique environment. There are also many resources available online to help tune performance for Java, application servers and databases.

Installation as a Service

Java VM Configuration

Java VM Tuning

Here are the steps to get started.  You may want to start with a 1GB max heap setting and increase if the need arises.  

set JAVA_OPTS=-XX:MaxPermSize=128m -Xmx512M -Dwflow.home=./wflow/ -javaagent:./wflow/aspectjweaver-1.8.5.jar

on line 13 to 

set JAVA_OPTS=-XX:MaxPermSize=256m -Xmx1024M -Dwflow.home=./wflow/ -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -javaagent:./wflow/aspectjweaver-1.8.5.jar

4. Save and start Joget.

There are many online resources for further tuning, e.g., http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/performance-138178.html.

Web Application Server Configuration

Apache Tomcat Configuration

    <Connector URIEncoding="UTF-8" port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1" 
                   connectionTimeout="20000" 
                   redirectPort="8443" />
    

and add a maxThreads="" such as

    <Connector URIEncoding="UTF-8" port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1" maxThreads="1000"
                   connectionTimeout="20000" 
                   redirectPort="8443" />
    

This would require a Tomcat restart to take effect.

There are many resources available online, e.g., http://www.itworld.com/networking/83035/tomcat-performance-tuning-tips.

Linux Configuration

ulimit -n 4096

works as a workaround but this is only valid for the session. For permanent configuration, please refer to documentation for the specific distribution, e.g., http://posidev.com/blog/2009/06/04/set-ulimit-parameters-on-ubuntu/.

Database Configuration

Database Indexing

However, in more complex apps, there would be more complex database queries that make use of these tables. As such, it is recommended for indexes to be added manually into table columns when required.

MySQL Configuration

When using InnoDB in MySQL, setting an appropriate InnoDB Buffer Pool is important for large-scale performance. Details can be found here: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/innodb-buffer-pool.html.

In environments with large data and queries, one way to improve performance is to use the query cache. This can help speed up query performance tremendously. Details can be found at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/query-cache.html.

You may need to increase the number of maximum connections allowed if there are a lot of concurrent requests. https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/too-many-connections.html

It is possible to identify slow queries in MySQL by enabling the slow query log. This helps to identify areas for possible indexing and optimization.
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/slow-query-log.html

Clustering and Load Balancing

For large scale and high-availability deployments, clustering and load balancing may need to be implemented using the Large Enterprise Edition. A high-level description is as follows:

The main configuration is actually done at the web application server, in this case Tomcat. There's a quite comprehensive documentation for this at http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-6.0-doc/cluster-howto.html.

You'll need a load balancer as well. This could be hardware or software, and it's possible to use Apache web server for this purpose. Using the mod_proxy_balancer module (http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_proxy_balancer.html), traffic is directed to various Tomcat nodes. Depending on configuration, the approach could be load balanced or failover, and sticky sessions are recommended.

The database and wflow files (configuration/uploaded files) would also have to be shared from a centralized server.

Logging and Troubleshooting

When running Apache Tomcat, logs are stored in the tomcat_directory/logs directory. In particular, the files joget.log, catalina.out, and localhost.yyyy-MM-dd.log capture information and errors that are generated.

Should you encounter any issues or errors, it is best that the following information is provided when reporting the issue to Enterprise Support or the community forums:

• Steps to reproduce the issue

• Error messages (including any possible JavaScript errors) in the browser

• Copy of the log files mentioned above

• Screenshot(s) showing the problem

• Sample app that produces the issue

The more information provided, the faster an issue can be identified and resolved.

Backup and Restore

Backup Data

• Backup all configuration files and uploaded data files stored in joget_directory/wflow.

• Backup the database. e.g., in MySQL you can use the mysqldump utility.

Restoring Data

• Restore all configuration files and uploaded data files stored in joget_directory/wflow.

• Restore the database.