Server sizing and performance tuning

[jay.l.fisher]

Can anyone share any experience or advice on sizing and tuning of a Linux server running Tomcat and a SmartGWT EE application? I know it is a pretty broad question, but any feedback or advice on relevant tools or metrics for planning would be greatly appreciated.

The app mostly uses the standard SmartGWT EE SQLDataSource with very little custom server side code so most DSRequests are simply passed through to the DB server.

[jay.l.fisher]

Any feedback? Is there a good tool for measuring the app's memory usage, etc. in a test environment and extrapolating to a larger number of concurrent users? We're still in the early stages of development but of course the questions about server sizing for deployment are already starting to come in.

[svjard]

Clustering and load balancing are huge. This takes some time and tweaking though before you get it right. I use speedtracer extensively for test and performance analysis. I also use JMeter for testing and examining loads on Tomcat (it has it pros and cons) but if you have money there are some pretty cool monitoring tools out there like Applications Monitor and others, but they will cost you.