Java performance on HP-UX (11iR1&2)

[Gordon Brown_5]

I need to run a java app over a WAN using an X-terminal or PC-X emulator at the client end.

We have carried out some tests on our local LAN using Windows XP , LINUX and HPUX.

We have found that HPUX performance with JAVA is so bad that we feel we must be doing something wrong.

We have tested a small app ( no graphics ) that bubble sorts 5000 values and the platforms are:

Windows XP P4 2.8GHz time .1secs
Linux P3 1GHz time .3secs
HP9000 L3000 dual proc (8Gb RAM) 20 seconds (300 users running)
HP9000 A500 single proc (2Gb RAM) 10secs ( 1 user running)
HPjconfig assures that all patches etc installed.

What is wrong ?

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

A few things.

The A500 is not a very strong machine.

The L3000 with 300 users may just be overloaded.

Java performance has been a constant problem for me as well.

I would not belive the JPconfig utility as far as patching goes.

I would pick a stable version of java from http://www.hp.com/go/java and install it.

I would manually verify that all patches are isntalled with the swlist utility.

Lastly I'd make sure teh system in general had a recent bi-annual patch update and the kernel was tuned to permit sufficent number of processes, number of open files and such.

SEP

[Steve Lewis]

Nothing is wrong, you are getting similar values for Java on your hardware to the rest of us. Its a useless slow language, IMHO.

What you will find though, is that if you re-run your Java app a second time immediately, it will be slightly faster to load.

Don't compare the times of an A500 with a PC, the PC will always win, whether Linux or Windows. I have even found a PC to be faster than a 32-way Superdome (32 cpus @ 1.1Ghz) running Java.

To run your app over a WAN, I recommend using VNC to set up a local X screen to run the app onto and effectively remote-X via VNC client on a remote PC. You can tunnel VNC over ssh with Exceed or PuTTY.

[Gordon Brown_5]

Dear All,

Thank you for th efeedback and enjoy your points. I am happy we are not apparently doing anything wrong and we will attempt a different approach.

Regarding VNC as a solution - the problem with this is that screen refresh is an issue but as the JAVA performance is so bad we will have to resort to using Microsloth except in this case HPUX is the sloth !

Cheers

Gordon

[rick jones]

Just how much interaction is there over the LAN? Are the lanadmin -g mibstats stats clean?

Java on old, slow PA is going to be slow, but three orders of magnitude seems a bit much.

[Gordon Brown_5]

Hi Rick, Thanks for the reply.

To be Frank we haven't even got to the network yet , the test figures were from a standalone bubble sort program which is why I am concerned.

I expect the PA box to be slower than the PC but the up side is that the PA will support multiple instances of the app; whereas the performance PC will degrade rapidly.

Regards

Gordon

[Andrew C Fieldsend]

This may or may not be relevant to your problem (not having seen your bubble sort app), but I've seen similar performance issues with Java apps on HP-UX in the past, and improved the speed dramatically by paying attention to how the app is written, particularly around object creation and reuse.

Apparently the garbage collection in the HP-UX port of Java was the cause, although it may have been improved since I saw the particular problem. (If this is the issue, then rewriting the app to overcome it will give you an extra bonus in speed on all platforms.)

[Gordon Brown_5]

Thanks Andy, I will file that for future use. We are not using any dynamic memory allocation / deallocation in the bubble sort - it is just doing array manipulation so unless the JVM is carrying out heap activities in its spare time I don't think this is the problem.

[Bill Hassell]

Another issue is not limited to Java -- if you're using Xwindows over a WAN, the reply time can be exceedingly slow (into 100's of ms). If ping times are more than 20-40 ms, Xwindows will appear to be extremely slow because it uses a massive number of query/response packets to gather details about the display device. On a local LAN, this behavior is masked by the very low reply times. If WAN ping times are hundreds of ms, the WAN speed is almost unimportant when several thousand queries are made simply to resize a window. (queries include negotiations on display size, available colors, font capability, etc)

This is a feature of all WANs such that applications must use alternate display methods. Character displays will always outperform GUIs in WAN situations.

[rick jones]

Gordon - while I cannot guarantee they are watching, you might post the bubblesort so the HP Java types, or others might be able to run it and profile it etc... to see what might be amiss.

[Gordon Brown_5]

Bill,

Thanks fo rthe reply , yes we are aware of the issues of X over the LAN but the problem at the moment is that our non GUI test app is 1-200 times slower on HP-UX than Windoze/Linux.

I would qualify the CUI app performance being better than GUI - we do actually have a GUI app that outperforms a CUI !

Rick,

Thanks fo rthat but the idea of JAVA surely is write once run anywhere and at .1 secs on Windoze I think it is probably written ok.

The X/HPUX solution is not my preferred solution and I think it will eventually have to be Windows Terminal Server and RDP.

[rick jones]

The seeing what might be amiss isn't necessarily in your bubblesort, but in what happens in the HP JVM while the bubblesort is running.

[Andrew C Fieldsend]

The idea of Java was indeed "write once, run anywhere". Unfortunately, reality interfered with the ideals, and it's now generally accepted that it's more like "write once, test everywhere".

Don't get me wrong, I like Java, but there are differences between implementations. I assume that you're comparing the performance of the same version (1.x...) of Java on the two platforms?

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

With proper version of Java and proper patching overall the PA-RISC box is going scale better than the windows boxes.

Java itself is very inefficient with resources and large amounts of memory will be required.

I really think the L2000 has more than enough RAM unless its already used up by oracle or something.

SEP