Performance Tuning for Content Manager

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2003, 2006. All rights reserved. xiii

Preface

This IBM® Redbook deals with performance tuning for IBM DB2® Content

Manager Version 8 for Multiplatforms. Written for architects, developers, and

system administrators, it is a guide to help plan, configure, and tune a Content

Manager system for performance. Performance problems arise from poor

planning, poor design, monitoring, and maintenance, so we want to make sure

this book serves as a guide to help you from day one of system planning, and

channels you through the right path for a successful system.

In Part 1, we start with an overview of Content Manager system architecture and

an overview on the base products including DB2, WebSphere® Application

Server, and Tivoli® Storage Manager. To achieve desired performance or

troubleshooting performance issues for a Content Manager system, it is

important to understand what base products make up the system.

In Part 2, we introduce performance tuning basics. We define what performance

is, how it is measured, why we need to do it, and when to plan and tune your

system for performance. We cover performance methodology, and describe the

performance improvement process along with a set of general guidelines that

you should use for planning a new system or maintaining and improving an

existing system.

In Part 3, we summarize the best practices for tuning a Content Manager system

for performance using check lists and a flowchart. For details, we cover the

tuning of the operating system, DB2, WebSphere Application Server, and Tivoli

Storage Manager for Content Manager. In most cases, for each parameter

tuning, we describe what the parameter is used for, the default value if any, how

to view, set, and update it, and our recommendation based on our experience.

In Part 4, we cover monitoring tools at the operating system level, monitoring and

analysis tools for DB2 including techniques used with these tools, monitoring

tools for WebSphere Application Server, and performance tracing for Content

Manager. In addition, we describe performance-related troubleshooting

techniques based on a collection of real-life scenarios and a case study.

Many performance-related books and articles have been published already, and

this book is based heavily on some of these performance publications. Many

thanks to the authors, especially the IBM Content Manager Performance Team

for their contribution.