How to troubleshoot BuildForge performance?
5 answers
Comments
@hujirong please check if nscd is running on BF server.
nscd stands for Name Service Cache Daemon, which provides a cache for the most common name service requests.
Our BF server is on Windows, how to start this daemon? I also find this post, because we are using ClearCase on Windows too. Where (on ClearCase server?) and how to check this service on Windows? http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21500565
How many virtual machines are running on the physical host?
How CPU/memory intensive are other virtual machines using?
On this BuildForge virtual machine, is BuildForge the only application that you notice slowness?
If you are using virtualised solution from VMware, here is the general guideline to optimise performance
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1008360
Comments
As a BF admin, you can find out what operations that significantly take longer than expected and what operations that take about the same time.
Everything is wrong. In the web pages, before it may take 1 sec to response now all take 10 sec, I mean every operation/clicking on the web page. And it's my testing environment, there is no load at all. Initially I was suspecting the connection to DB2 is slow, but not all operstions/clicking will have to connect to DB2, right? How can I do a trace from click on the web page all the way to the DB2?
I just installed a brand new Tomcat 7 on this server, it performs perfectly normal, every click gets back instantly.
Did you mean a brand new Tomcat 7 without BF running on it? In this case it would be quite different since it may only serves "static" contents.
At this stage, I would suggest you run a network trace on the BF server, so that it can capture both the traffic between the browser and BF server, and between the BF server and the DB2 server. But again, that will be a job for the system/network administrator.
If you're still struggling, you'd better contact Support.
It's a new Tomcat with no BF. I will ask the SA to do a trace and also submit a PMR to IBM support, but support usually won't provide this type of help, and they will ask us to buy a consultant from IBM?
One of the popular network capture and analysis tools is Wireshark.
If you're using Windows, just use Wireshark to capture and analyze the packets. The tools is quite easy to use.
If you're using Linux, the command "tcpdump" is usually bundled, and you can use it to capture and then use Wireshark to analyze (with its nice GUI).
http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/08/tcpdump-command-examples/
(I usually use "tcpdump -XX -i eth0 -w capture.pcap")
The most difficult part is the analysis as you need to have sufficient network knowledge to understand that packets.
Also if the problem is on click you can try something like Firebug to see exactly where the time goes. If it is a problem with the network then you can proceed with a Wireshark trace, but if its a problem with the scripting then it will narrow the problem down for support.
~Spencer