An Oracle Technical White Paper October 2011 Oracle Optimized Solution for Oracle WebLogic Server Oracle Optimized Solution for Oracle WebLogic Server Introduction ......................................................................................... 1 Solution Overview ............................................................................... 1 Integrated Enterprise Application Stack .......................................... 2 Oracle's SPARC T4 Servers ........................................................... 3 Solution Architecture ........................................................................... 3 Physical Architecture ....................................................................... 3 Virtual Architecture .......................................................................... 4 WebLogic Clustering for Improved Availability and Scalability ........ 6 Test Environment ................................................................................ 6 Workload Description ...................................................................... 8 Tuning Guidelines ........................................................................... 8 Test Results ........................................................................................ 9 CPU Results .................................................................................. 10 Memory Utilization Results ............................................................ 10 Sizing Guidelines .............................................................................. 11 Security: T-Series Cryptography ....................................................... 11 T-Series Cryptography Performance ............................................ 12 For More Information ......................................................................... 13 Oracle Optimized Solution for Oracle WebLogic Server Introduction Oracle WebLogic Server has long set the enterprise gold standard for a high-performance, high-value application server platform. The Oracle Optimized Solution for Oracle WebLogic Server builds upon this success, providing a pretested and optimized architecture for deploying enterprise Java applications. Oracle Optimized Solutions are predefined solutions with detailed build instructions and best practices for assembling a best-of-breed combination of Oracle's Sun servers and storage, Oracle applications, and the Oracle Solaris operating system. Oracle's hardware and software engineers work together to integrate the complete stack and to ensure that Oracle applications, databases, and middleware are integrated and optimized with compute, storage, networking, and operating systems to deliver extreme performance. Employing this pretested and preconfigured infrastructure can help mitigate risk, reduce complexity, and accelerate deployment of new applications. This document focuses on the configuration and performance characteristics of the Oracle Optimized Solution for WebLogic Server on Oracle's SPARC T4 servers. The remainder of this paper describes the solution architecture, presents a test environment used to gather performance characterization information, and provides sizing guidelines and recommended optimizations in order to achieve a reliable solution. Solution Overview The Oracle Optimized Solution for Oracle WebLogic Server features a complete infrastructure for deploying Oracle WebLogic Server version 10.3.5 in an enterprise environment. The following sections describe the integrated enterprise application stack and the underlying hardware components. Performance expectations, sizing recommendations and results were derived from the most recent record-setting performance test conducted using the SPECjEnterprise® benchmark standards1. While the architecture of this solution paper departs somewhat from the test environment specified in the benchmark tests, it is essentially the same simple design as what was tested, but with more provisions for availability, proper sizing configuration, cost effectiveness and practicality. This solution whitepaper omits certain details as to the configuration of the Oracle Database in favor of leaving the database options open to the end user. Ample documentation already exists, including a dedicated Oracle Optimized Solution for Oracle Database 11g, for deploying a complementary database solution. 1 SPEC and SPECjEnterprise are registered trademarks of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. 1 Oracle Optimized Solution for Oracle WebLogic Server Note: While Oracle WebLogic Server forms a core part of the of the Oracle Fusion Middleware portfolio, the information in this paper is relevant only to the Oracle WebLogic application server. Integrated Enterprise Application Stack The Oracle Optimized Solution for Oracle WebLogic Server provides a complete environment for developing and deploying enterprise Java EE applications. The solution utilizes an integrated enterprise application stack that includes the Solaris 10 operating system with built-in Oracle Solaris Containers virtualization and Oracle WebLogic Server. Oracle Solaris The Oracle Solaris 10 operating system includes innovative, built-in functionality, such as near wire- speed networking throughput and high availability features that deliver industry-leading performance. Built-in virtualization features help to optimize resource utilization, and advanced security features provide the isolation and control required by enterprise environments. Oracle Solaris Containers are used in this architecture to securely and conveniently host and deploy Java EE applications. Some of the major features of the Oracle Solaris operating system include: • High-performance 64-bit operating environment • Support for large memory and high CPU count systems • Excellent scalability for richly threaded environments • Predictive, self-healing features • Extensive instrumentation and diagnostic capabilities to assist performance and availability • Specialized Security features Oracle Solaris Containers Oracle Solaris Containers allow kernel-level separation of applications running in a single Oracle Solaris 10 instance. An included feature of the Oracle Solaris 10 operating system, Oracle Solaris Containers provide built-in no-cost virtualization. Oracle Solaris Containers are rapid to deploy, impose extremely low overhead, and are used in this architecture to separate instances of Oracle WebLogic Server. Oracle WebLogic Server 11g Oracle WebLogic Server Enterprise Edition is the application server of choice for demanding customer environments the world over. Comprehensive management capabilities enable administration of sophisticated systems via a well-designed graphical console. Proven clustering technology, cross- domain management, and comprehensive diagnostic tools are standard with Oracle WebLogic Server Enterprise Edition, and are well integrated with the Oracle portfolio for superior interoperability and support across the technology stack. 2 Oracle Optimized Solution for Oracle WebLogic Server The Oracle WebLogic Server 11g is a fully compliant Java EE 5.0 application server which is feature rich and holds benchmark world records for Java EE performance. Oracle WebLogic Server 11g takes full advantage of the 64-bit addressable memory and also the large number of hardware threads available in servers such as the Sun SPARC T4 servers used in this architecture. Oracle's SPARC T4 Servers Oracle's SPARC T4 servers are powered by the SPARC T4 processor that combines a new level of single-threaded performance along with high overall system throughput. Integrated on-chip cryptographic acceleration provides high levels of security without sacrificing application performance. The SPARC T4 servers run Oracle Solaris 10 and 11, both of which include advanced integrated virtualization technology that enables real-time scaling and optimal resource utilization. SPARC T4 based servers are especially ideal for deploying Java applications on Oracle WebLogic Server, due to their optimally balanced single and multithreaded performance capabilities. Older Java applications that were coded for and performed better on single-thread, clockspeed-centric servers can operate happily alongside their more modern, multithreaded counterparts. Options within this family of servers include the SPARC T4-1, SPARC T4-2, and SPARC T4-4 servers configured with one, two, or four SPARC T4 processors respectively. The systems scale to a maximum configuration of up to four 3.0 GHz processors (eight cores per processor, for a maximum of 256 threads), 1 TB of memory, and up to eight internal SAS or SSD drives in the SPARC T4-4 server. Solution Architecture The following sections describe the physical and virtual architecture of the Oracle Optimized Solution for WebLogic Server. Physical Architecture The physical architecture of this Oracle Optimized Solution for WebLogic Server consists of, at its smallest and most compact, dual SPARC T4-1 servers attached to a 10 Gigabit Ethernet network switch, as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1: The most basic physical architecture configuration includes a pair of SPARC T4-1 servers. 3 Oracle Optimized Solution for Oracle WebLogic Server In the largest configuration, seen in Figure 2, this solution architecture consists of four SPARC T4-4 servers attached to a 10 Gigabit Ethernet network switch using the on-board 1 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces that are a standard part of the server configuration. The 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity provides further flexibility and