SAP NetWeaver
Best Practices Guide
Performance Best Practices Guide
for SAP NetWeaver Portal 7.3
Applicable Releases:
SAP NetWeaver 7.3
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Document History
Document Version Description
Contents
1. Portal Setup - Identifying the Components ... 4
2. Tuning flow - Verifying Performance ... 6
3. Tuning the portal ... 7
Performance Best Practices Guide for SAP NetWeaver Portal 7.3
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Performance Best Practices
The purpose of this guide is to help the system administrator to maximize the performance of SAP NetWeaver Portal.
1. Portal Setup - Identifying the Components
To identify problematic areas, the entire system landscape should be reviewed. For each of the components the compatibility must be verified.
For each of these components the performance measures of CPU, memory, and connectivity (Network roundtrips and throughput) should be considered.
Server – layered view
1. SAP NetWeaver Portal is a web container extension – and this guide deals with this layer only.
2. It runs on top of SAP Application Server Java. 3. AS Java runs inside a SAP JVM.
4. Web gateway is provided by SAP Internet Communication Manager (ICM).
For improving server performance these four layers should be considered
Recommended tools:
Diagnostics server (root cause analysis) is provided with SAP Solution Manager. See SAP Note 797147: http://service.sap.com/diagnostics
SAP JVM Monitoring tools and SAP JVM Tools SAPJVM Profiler SDN Link
Java Memory Analyzer Tool: SAP HelpMAT Project
Java Thread Dump Analyzer is included with Memory Analyzer Tool MAT Project
Persistency layer – In the portal this is the database layer. The portal uses a few tables in the AS Java scheme. Recommended tools: NWA: Using Open SQL Monitors Client
Client side measurements are based upon:
1. measuring Client OS browser process resources (such as process memory and CPU times)
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A list of browsers compatible with SAP NetWeaverPortal can be found in the SAP PAM available at: Web Browser Dependencies
SAP NetWeaver Portal uses the browser cache to improve performance. It is strongly recommended to enable full functionality of the browser cache for the end users. Recommended tools:
OS utilities to measure process resources HTTP sniffers, HTTPWatch
Browser specific tools, such as IE8 developer tools and Firefox Firebug
Network
Network architecture may consist of various topologies and the relevant expertise is required for correct network planning.
When investigating performance overhead, the common approach is eliminating network overheads by configuration or during analysis.
Using HTTP GZip compression is recommended for data sizes over 1kb. Recommended tools: Sniffer
Backend application server
Back-end application server performance issues should be treated using the specific back-end practices.
Back-end connectivity to the portal or to a client browser must be verified. An external user repository (such as LDAP) can be considered as a back end. Recommended tools:
Back-end specific monitoring utilities - ABAP Workload monitor
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2. Tuning flow - Verifying Performance
When applying a new portal system, there are a few practices that should be taken care of.The following paragraphs describe the procedures that may be used for tuning your portal server.
1. Sizing – SAP offers a methodology to anticipate the required amounts of hardware resources while planning the new landscape.
The sizing procedure is based on initial measurements, which are done at SAP, and represent certain content types. By calculating the number of concurrent items the implementation team can tell how much hardware is required to have the desired total throughput.
For more information on sizing, go to http://service.sap.com/sizing.
2. Fine tuning – After initial setup is complete, the SAP NetWeaver system can be fine tuned to best fit customer requirements and limitations. Using zero admin templates eliminates most of the VM tuning arguments, in case VM tuning is required , check notes:
Note 1248926 - AS Java VM Parameters for NetWeaver 7.1 based products Note 723909 - Java VM settings for J2EE 6.40/7.0 (for relevant JVM parameters) Logs Configuration - It is recommended to minimize the amount of logging and
tracing in order to avoid the impact of expensive I/O activity.
Caches Configuration - Enabling the Portal caches can improve the Portal
performance, for more info, please review the SCN Article: SAP NetWeaver Portal 7.3 - Tuning Caches.
At this time, it is recommended to verify the stability and scalability over a simple content scenario.
3. Volume test optimization – SAP provides guidance for tuning various components to run in the best manner. For more information, review http://service.sap.com/diagnostics.
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3. Tuning the portal
SAP JVM
Configuration and Setup of SAP JVM
Tuning the Applicatioin Server Configuring JVM parameters on AS Java
o Set <-XX:SoftRefLRUPolicyMSPerMB=1000> (from default 1) Avoiding session leaks - Tracing Single User Sessions
Tuning HTTP Provider Service Enabling production mode
UME Cache
Optimizing Performance With the UME Cache
PCD Cache tuning
The PCD uses a transient cache for all objects which are loaded from the database persistence. This cache is designed to be memory sensitive – meaning that frequently used objects, those that are currently in use by client applications or likely to be used soon again, are kept in cache as long as there is enough memory.
Read more and implement using Note 905211 - PCD Cache Optimizer Tuning
PCD administration reference for 7.30 Configuring PCD Properties The following defaults are set for Portal 7.30:
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Navigation service
To improve performance, the portal caches each set of navigation nodes required by a user. If a user accesses a navigation hierarchy that was previously accessed, the portal can retrieve the navigation hierarchy from the cache instead of generating it again.
Caching Navigation Nodes
Multiple locale configurations - Additional tuning is required:
Configure the <defaultlocale> property with locales that should be added to the cache. Open the navigation service properties via NWA and set the property
<portal.navigation.connector.cache.defaultLocales>. It should be configured as follows: en_us,de_ch, etc....
Additional Search Provider configuration tunings: Configure all the languages in the Roles Index Provider – click on “Define Suggestion Languages”
Portal Runtime Cache
Configuring the Portal Runtime Properties
Activating and Clearing the Portal Runtime Cache OBN Cache
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4. Analyzing Performance Problems
High-level steps for analyzing performance problems:
1. First identify the software components involved in the business scenario and the interaction between them.
2. Locate the appropriate performance monitoring tools for the component.
3. Reproduce the problematic scenario and monitor the relevant metrics of every component involved in the flow.
4. Analyze the results.
CPU
Verifying and improving CPU consumption Java Application Profiling with the SAP JVM Profiler
End to end root cause analysis diagnostics
Memory
For more info on memory analysis and tuning: Java Memory Analysis
Monitoring the GC
