Web Performance Tuning

Benchmarking the Netscape Enterprise Server

For optimal performance in benchmark situations, make sure that Content Management, Search, and Agents are disabled. These functions are controlled through the admin server. Bring up the admin server and go to Web Publishing | Server State. Change the state to off, and apply the change. Next, go to Agents& Search | Search State. Change this state to off, and apply the change. Note that both states may already be set to off.

SPECweb96 Tuning

SPECweb96 uses a very large data fileset. This fileset far exceeds the Netscape Enterprise Server’s expected fileset size. For instance, on the Netscape web site, we are able to obtain more than an 80% cache hit rate with a 10MB cache. With SPECweb96, a 10MB cache can yield cache hit rates as low as 20% (this number varies depending on the SPECweb96 load requested; larger loads use larger filesets).

To optimize performance in a SPECweb96 test, you should use a machine which has enough RAM to cache the entire fileset. You should also increase the web server’s cache size (see the previous section, Section A.5.2, for more information).

1. Calculate the number of files used in the SPECweb96 fileset. The SPECweb96 fileset size is based on the number of SPECweb96 OPS requested in the test run. The following formula calculates the number of files:

   files= ( ( (int) ( (sqrt(OPS/5) * 10.0) + 0.5) ) * 36 )
   
   fileset size = files * 142207.5

   Example:

   Max Requested OPS	Number of files	Fileset size (bytes)
   500	3636 ...