Level: Intermediate Yuriy Veytsman (yuriy_veytsman@us.ibm.com), Staff Software Engineer, IBM
Nirmala Venkatraman, Performance Architect, IBM
James Powers (jhp@us.ibm.com), Software Developer, IBM
Razeyah Stephen, Manager, Domino Performance Team, IBM
13 May 2008 In this article, we discuss the performance of IBM® Lotus® Domino® 8.0.1 server with IBM Lotus Notes® Traveler users.
With IBM Lotus Domino 8.0.1, Lotus Domino added support for IBM Lotus Notes Traveler. Lotus Notes Traveler provides two-way, over-the-air synchronization between Lotus Domino servers and Microsoft® Windows® Mobile handheld devices. Lotus Notes Traveler synchronizes email, calendar, to-do, address book, and journal data in real time. The Lotus Notes Traveler server runs as a Lotus Domino server task and is installed on a server running Lotus Domino 8.0.1. The Lotus Notes Traveler server task uses the Lotus Domino directory to automatically look up and find Lotus Notes users. You can learn more about Lotus Notes Traveler.
In this article, we discuss the performance of Lotus Domino 8.0.1 server with Lotus Notes Traveler users. For the study, we used two Lotus Domino servers in a remote configuration. This configuration means that the Lotus Domino server with the Lotus Notes Traveler server installed on it was on a separate server from the Lotus Domino 8.0.1 mail server hosting the users’ mail databases.
Figure 1 is a diagram of the configuration.
Figure 1. Configuration
Lotus Domino 8.0.1 Traveler server workload
The performance of the Lotus Notes Traveler server and the Lotus Domino mail server were measured using the Lotus Notes Traveler and N8Mail workloads on the Microsoft Windows 2003 server operating system. The Lotus Notes Traveler server was on a separate server from the Lotus Domino mail server, and it was exercised by other systems that simulated mobile device clients. The driver systems that were simulating mobile device clients ran special scripts that emulated remote devices reading and sending mail messages.
The Lotus Notes Traveler client script does the following:
There are 64 iterations of this loop with a 900-second (15-minute) wait between iterations. Each user starts on a random iteration count (first or fifth, for example), but each user runs 64 iterations total.
Loop start
- Open/read five Inbox messages (every iteration)
- Reply to the first message (every second iteration)
- Send a message (10 bytes size ) to one person (every eighth iteration)
- Send another message (10 bytes size) to three people (every eighth iteration)
- Move one document from the Inbox to the NotesBench folder (every iteration)
- Delete two documents (hard deletion) (every iteration)
Loop end
In addition, the Lotus Notes Traveler clients listen to the autosync messages from the Lotus Notes Traveler server and run synchronization on demand when incoming email and calendar entries are changed on the Lotus Domino Mail server.
Lotus Domino 8.0.1 server workload
The N8Mail workload that was run on the Lotus Domino 8.0.1 mail server simulated users sending mail using a Lotus Notes 8 client. This workload is part of a NotesBench workload suite that is part of the tools NotesBench (used by the NotesBench Consortium members) and Server.Load (included as an installation option in the Administrator Client). For more information on the details of the N8Mail workload, refer to the developerWorks® article “IBM Lotus Notes V8 workloads: Taking performance to a new level.”
For these measurements, the N8Mail workload simulated 4,000 Lotus Notes clients sending mail to 4,700 mail users. The additional 700 mail users were the Lotus Notes Traveler registered mail users. These measurements simulate a customer environment where mail users are either a Lotus Notes client user or a Lotus Notes Traveler mail user, but not both.
Disclaimer
All our tests are lab measurements; therefore, the results might differ from those achieved in real customer environments. For assistance with capacity planning, consult the IBM TechLine team, which does capacity planning for new hardware.
IBM Lotus Notes Traveler server configuration and results
Tables 1-3 show the hardware and software configuration for the Lotus Notes Traveler server.
Table 1. Hardware configuration for Lotus Notes Traveler server
| Model | IBM x3550 |
|---|
| Processors for test / speed | 2 processors (dual core) @ 3.6ghz |
|---|
| Installed memory | 4 GB |
|---|
| Active physical drives | 2 disks, 73 GB each |
|---|
| Active logical volumes | N/A |
|---|
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows 2003 Server Enterprise (32-bit) |
|---|
Table 2. Notes.ini settings for Lotus Notes Traveler server
| Description | Notes.ini settings |
|---|
| Used for all tests | NTS_Java_Parms=-Xms< heap size min>M –Xmx<heap size max>M |
|---|
Table 3. HTTP settings for Lotus Notes Traveler server
| HTTP Settings | Value |
|---|
| Persistent connections timeout | 310 seconds |
|---|
| Output timeout | 310 seconds |
|---|
| Number active threads | 400 |
|---|
The Lotus Notes Traveler server was set up as a single Lotus Domino partition server on an eServer™ xSeries® 3550 running Microsoft Windows 2003 32bit Enterprise Server with two dual-core processors and 4 GB of physical memory. Network access was through a single 1 GB Ethernet adapter running in full duplex mode.
The figures that follow in this article show the processor resource utilization on the Lotus Notes Traveler server at various user loads. Figure 2 shows the processor utilization for the Lotus Notes Traveler server.
Figure 2. Percentage processor busy for Lotus Notes Traveler server
The majority of work on the Lotus Notes Traveler server is done by the traveler.exe task.
The following actions are done by the Lotus Notes Traveler server:
- The server pulls data from the mail server and pushes the data to the mobile devices.
- The server pulls data from the mobile devices and pushes the data to the mail server.
To capture the measurements shown in figure 2, the Domino mail server was always at a steady state of 4,000 N8Mail users, and the number of Lotus Notes Traveler users was incremented. The Domino mail server was configured for 4,700 mail users, out of which 4,000 mail users simulated Lotus Notes Client traffic using the N8Mail workload. The number of Lotus Notes Traveler users simulating device traffic was then increased from 200 users to 700 users.
Table 4 specifies the Java™ heap sizes that were used on the Lotus Notes Traveler server at various Lotus Notes Traveler user loads, using this Notes.ini:
NTS_Java_Parms=-Xms< heap size min>M –Xmx<heap size max>M
At each user load, the heap size maximum and minimum parameters were set to the same value.
Table 4. Java heap sizes for Lotus Notes Traveler server
| Simulated Lotus Notes Traveler users | 200 | 400 | 600 | 700 |
|---|
| Java max heap size (MB) | 190 | 383 | 584 | 625 |
|---|
Table 5 presents several key resource utilization metrics on the Lotus Notes Traveler server at a load of 600 active Lotus Notes Traveler users and 4,000 active Lotus Domino N8Mail users.
Table 5. Resource usage at 600 active Lotus Notes Traveler users and 4,000 Lotus Domino users
| Resource | Results |
|---|
| Processor % busy | 63 |
|---|
| Total disk reads/second | 0.15 |
|---|
| Total disk writes/second | 167 |
|---|
| Lotus Notes Traveler server virtual memory (MB) | 1,746 |
|---|
| Network bytes / second | 1,766 |
|---|
Lotus Domino mail server configuration and results
Tables 6 and 7 show the hardware and software configuration for the Lotus Domino mail server.
Table 6. Hardware configuration for Lotus Domino mail server
| Model | IBM x3850 |
|---|
| Processors for test / speed | 4 processors (dual core) @ 3.0 GHz |
|---|
| Installed memory | 12 GB |
|---|
| Active physical drives | 42 disks |
|---|
| Active logical volumes | 6 arrays of RAID 0 |
|---|
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows 2003 Server Enterprise x64 |
|---|
Table 7. Software configuration for Lotus Domino mail server
| Description | Notes.ini settings |
|---|
| Used for all tests | server_pool_tasks=80
server_max_concurrent_trans=100
Show_Server_Performance=1
RouterDbCacheSize=6100
NSF_DBcache_maxentries=6000
SCHEDULE_NO_VALIDATE=1
NSF_Buffer_Pool_Size_MB=250 |
|---|
| Used in Lotus Domino 8 to create ODS48 databases | CREATE_R8_DATABASES=1 |
|---|
Lotus Domino server 8.0.1 (32-bit) was set up as a single Lotus Domino partition server on an eServer xSeries 3850 running Microsoft Windows 2003 64-bit Standard Server with four dual-core processors and 12 GB of physical memory. The Lotus Domino executable files were installed on one IBM FAStT600 array, which was 200 GB and which used RAID 0. The mail databases were spread across three IBM FAStT600 arrays; each was 800 GB in size and used RAID 0. Mail journaling was set up on a separate disk array. Network access was through a single 1 GB Ethernet adapter running in full duplex mode.
Figure 3 shows the processor resource utilization on the Lotus Domino mail server at various Lotus Notes Traveler user loads and with 4,000 N8Mail users.
Figure 3. Percent processor busy for Lotus Domino mail server
When increasing the number of Lotus Notes Traveler users from 200 to 700, we measured a 36 percent relative processor usage increase on the Lotus Domino mail server. The processor overhead of enabling Lotus Notes Traveler users on the Domino mail server is moderate because of the efficient use of polling for Lotus Domino mail by the Lotus Notes Traveler server.
Table 8 lists several key resource utilization metrics on the Lotus Domino mail server at a load of 4,000 N8Mail users and 600 Lotus Notes Traveler users.
Table 8. Resource usage at 600 active Lotus Notes Traveler users and 4,000 active Lotus Domino N8Mail users
| Server | Lotus Domino 8.0.1 |
|---|
| Mail template | Mail8.ntf |
|---|
| Mail database ODS version | 48 |
|---|
| Workload | N8Mail |
|---|
| Processor % busy | 14 |
|---|
| Total disk reads/second | 200 |
|---|
| Total disk writes/second | 600 |
|---|
| nServer virtual memory used (MB) | 2227 |
|---|
| Network bytes / second | 2500 |
|---|
Conclusion
The performance measurements of the Lotus Notes Traveler server and the Lotus Domino mail server in a remote configuration show that a Lotus Notes Traveler server was able to support 700 active users. The Lotus Notes Traveler server, with two dual-core processors and 4 GB memory, was at approximately 70 percent processor utilization at 700 active Lotus Notes Traveler users and is close to the 2 GB virtual memory limit for a 32-bit application server.
With the Lotus Domino Mail server at a steady state of 4,000 N8Mail users, adding 700 Lotus Notes Traveler active users was measured. We found that the increase in processor utilization on the Lotus Domino mail server with the activity from the Lotus Notes Traveler users was moderate.
To support more than 700 active Lotus Notes Traveler users, you can configure additional Lotus Notes Traveler servers with one Lotus Domino mail server. The processor utilization on the Lotus Domino mail server must be monitored to ensure that the Lotus Domino mail server can handle the activity from the Lotus Notes Traveler users at peak load.
Appendix A
Table A-1. Notes.ini settings
| Notes.Ini parameter name | Explanation |
|---|
| Create_R8_Databases | Applies to Lotus Domino 8 servers. Set it to 1 to create new ODS48 databases on Lotus Domino 8 servers. |
|---|
| NSF_Buffer_Pool_Size_MB | Specifies the maximum size in bytes of the NSF buffer pool, a section of memory dedicated to buffering I/O transfers between Lotus Domino and disk storage. |
|---|
| NSF_Dbcache_Maxentries | Specifies the number of databases that a server can hold in its database cache at one time. |
|---|
| RouterDbCacheSize | Specifies the size of the router database cache used to cache mail databases in the router process. |
|---|
| SCHEDULE_NO_VALIDATE | Enables or disables whether SchedMgr validates its busytime database entry on a daily basis, as follows:
0 (default) - Enables validation
1 - Disables validation |
|---|
| Server_MAX_CONCURRENT_TRANS | Sets the limit for the number of concurrently scheduled transactions on a server. |
|---|
| Server_Pool_Tasks | Supplies the total number of physical threads in the Lotus Domino server (DbServer) threadpool. |
|---|
| Server_Show_Performance | Applies to servers. Specifies whether server performance events are displayed on the console. Set this variable to 1 to display server performance events on console. |
|---|
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About the authors  | | | Yuriy Veytsman has been a Staff Software Engineer with IBM Lotus since the late 1990s, working on projects involving Lotus Domino Web Access Lotus (iNotes), Lotus Discovery Server, Lotus Team Workplace (Lotus QuickPlace), and Lotus Instant Messaging (Lotus Sametime) testing. Previously, Yuriy was employed developing a variety of software and hardware applications for numerous companies throughout Europe. |
| | | Nirmala Venkatraman is a Performance Architect on the Domino Server Performance Team. |
| | | Jim Powers is a member of the IBM Lotus Domino performance team with a current concentration on the Linux platform. His experience with computer systems goes back more than 30 years; he has performed various hardware and software roles throughout his career. |
| | | Razeyah Stephen is manager of the IBM Lotus Domino and IBM Lotus Sametime performance teams. She joined Iris Associates in October 1998.
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