Servoy supports both Java 7 and Java 8 (for the Application Server, the Smart Client and Servoy Developer). As Java 8 has numerous performance improvements, it is preferred over Java 7.
If the hardware in which Servoy is running is 64bit, make sure to also run a 64 bit Java Virtual Machine. When in doubt which version is used, check the Servoy Admin page, under Servoy Server Home > Servoy Server Status > JVM Information:
An 32 bit JVM will allow a max memory of 2 Gb in total, In order to run with larger heap sizes (over 2 Gb) you have to use 64 bit JVM on a 64 bit OS |
Java has 2 distinct operating modes: client mode and server mode. When running in server mode, the startup of the Java process will take longer and initial execution of code will be slower, but after a while the application will perform faster. The server mode is best suited for the Servoy Application Server.
Whether or not a Java Virtual Machine supports client and/or server mode depends on the hardware, see http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/vm/server-class.html.
If the JVM supports servermode, it will automatically detect if the machine it is running on is a 'capable' machine and automatically run in server or client mode depending. The definition of "capable" may differ from Java version to Java version. For Java 5/6 this means a 2CPU, 2Gb memory machine.
Checking whether or not a Servoy Application Server runs in client or server mode can be seen on the Servoy Admin page, under Servoy Server Home > Servoy Server Status > JVM Information:
It is possible to enforce the Servoy Application Server to run in server mode (assuming the JVM is capable to operate in server mode), an extra startup argument can be added to the startup of the Servoy Application Server.
In servoy_server.sh/bat:
java -server -Djava.awt.headless=true -XX:MetaspaceSize=60M -XX:MaxMetaspaceSize=60M -XX:MinMetaspaceFreeRatio=0 -XX:MaxMetaspaceFreeRatio=100 ..... |
When using the Service wrapper:
# Java Additional Parameters wrapper.java.additional.1=-Djava.awt.headless=true wrapper.java.additional.2=-Duser.dir="C:\Servoy\application_server" wrapper.java.additional.3=-Djava.io.tmpdir="C:Servoy\application_server\server\work" wrapper.java.additional.4=-XX:MaxPermSize=128m wrapper.java.additional.5=-XX:MetaspaceSize=200M wrapper.java.additional.6=-XX:MaxMetaspaceSize=200M wrapper.java.additional.7=-XX:MinMetaspaceFreeRatio=0 wrapper.java.additional.8=-XX:MaxMetaspaceFreeRatio=100 wrapper.java.additional.9=-server |
On Windows 32 bit environments, the Java Runtime Environment does not include support for server mode. In order to take advantage of server mode optimizations on 32 bit Windows systems, it is required to install Java Development Kit (JDK) |
See Connection Pooling in the Database Connections chapter
In order to get the best possible performance, the communication between the Servoy Application Server and the database needs to be as fast as possible. The fastest option would be installing the database engine and the Servoy Application Server on the same machine, whether or not this is possible depends on the dimensions of the physical server and the resource requirements of both the database engine and the Servoy Application Server.
When opting for dedicated servers for both the database engine and the Servoy Application Server, the connection between them should be as fast as possible, preferably a direct 1Gb cable connection between the two machines.
When experiencing performance issues the 'Performance Data' page of the Servoy Admin page can be analysed to find slow performing SQL statements, or SLQ statements that are fired often.
The page provides an overview of all queries fired at the database. The performance data is sorted by the total time taken to perform the query, being the result of the average time * number of executions.
At any given time regular SQL statements (Type = Relation, Load foundset) should have an average execution time below 25 milliseconds.
Especially for SQL statements that are fired often and take up significant time it should be checked if it's possible to optimize the database, for example by creating the relevant indexes.
Servoy loads a foundset by first retrieving the PKs from the database. This retrieval is done in chunks: when the foundset is initialized, the first chunk is retrieved, consecutive chunks are retrieved when needed.
The actual record data is also retrieved from the database in chunks.
The size of the different chunks are controlled by 3 properties that can be set in the servoy.properties:
Setting | Default Value | Description |
|---|---|---|
servoy.foundset.pkChunkSize | 200 | Chunk size for foundset PK retrieval |
servoy.foundset.chunkSize | 30 | Chunk size for record data retrieval |
servoy.foundset.initialRelatedChunkSize | 2 * servoy.foundset.chunkSize | Chunk size for related record retrieval |
| servoy.foundset.statementBatching (since 2020.12) | false | This only works for inserts of records that are after each other (without another record from another datasource in between). It does now have side effects: In statementBatching if you insert 10 records of the same datasource, that is now always then also in a transaction (not depending if you started a transaction) because it goes into the same (single) batch statement. Because its now a transaction and a single statement to the db server, no matter if you are your self already in a transaction or we do it automatically now, if something goes wrong in 1 of the records, all records are failed, because databases don't tell us which one really failed, we would know this previously, and nothing is inserted That nothing inserted was already the case in transaction mode, but this is with this property to true different in none transaction mode, which did do the inserts until the failure and now it fails the same as in transaction mode. |
| servoy.foundset.loadRelatedRecordsIfParentIsNew (since 2020.12) | false | By default Servoy will not query for related records if the relation is a pk → fk relation. So if the relation has on the primary side at least all the primary keys specified. Because this scenario should already not be possible in a good designed database (if there is a fk→pk constraint specified on the child table). Child records should not already exist if there is no Parent record already. So Servoy does not ask the database for data in this scenario. Related lookups on not yet saved Parent records should only be used to make related records, not to expect to get data. By setting this property to "true" you can force Servoy to query for data even for such scenario's |
The values can be modified in an attempt to increase performance. The optimal values differ per application, thus no guidelines are available for alternative values. Tuning needs to be done by altering the values and monitoring the performance afterwards. The defaults are set based on averages.
In order to minimize the size of the content that the browser has to download for the Web Client, the application server serving the content can compress the content. The Servoy Application Server is configured to automatically compress content.
It is also possible to handle the compression outside of the Servoy Application Server, for example in an Apache HTTPD Server placed between the Servoy Application Server and the outside world. The advantage of this is that Tomcat's compression options are limited, so an external HTTP server offers more options.
When it comes to Apache HTTPD server, there are two options:
When it comes to compression, there are two factors that come into play, the time it takes to do the actual compression and the rate of compression achieved, resulting in quicker downloads to the browser due to smaller size. This is primary difference between mod_deflate and gzip in Apache HTTPD: while gzip gets a better compression rate than mod_deflate, it takes more time and CPU to perform the compression. In the case of Servoy Web Clients, that, due to it's Ajax driven design, performs a lot (albeit small) requests to the server, the overall performance will be better using mod_deflate.
Details on setting up mod_deflate on an Apache HTTPD server can be found here: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_deflate.html
When compression is handled by outside the Servoy Application Server, it is advised to turn of compression inside Servoy. This can be doen by modifying the server.xml file located in {servoy_install}application_server\server\conf\. and locate the Connector:
<Connector port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1" maxThreads="500" connectionTimeout="60000" redirectPort="8443" useBodyEncodingForURI="true" compressableMimeType="text/html,text/xml,text/css,text/javascript,text/plain" compression="on" compressionMinSize="2048"/> |
and removing the following atttributes:
Save the edits and restart the Servoy Application Server to let the configuration changes take effect.
At all times try to keep the Server log free from javascript application errors/excpetions, all application exceptions point to possible problems inside the application.