03:52 PM PST
August 07, 2008

Warning: main(../../header.html): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/groups/l/lt/ltp/htdocs/archive/old_pages/testresults/2001/websphtstx.php on line 12

Warning: main(): Failed opening '../../header.html' for inclusion (include_path='') in /home/groups/l/lt/ltp/htdocs/archive/old_pages/testresults/2001/websphtstx.php on line 12

Warning: main(../../LTP_Menu.html): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/groups/l/lt/ltp/htdocs/archive/old_pages/testresults/2001/websphtstx.php on line 16

Warning: main(): Failed opening '../../LTP_Menu.html' for inclusion (include_path='') in /home/groups/l/lt/ltp/htdocs/archive/old_pages/testresults/2001/websphtstx.php on line 16

IBM Linux Technology Center

Test Team

Verification summary report – Linux and WebSphere

Introduction

This document is the IBM Linux Technology Center Test Team report on testing WebSphere with Linux. Our experiences and results are summarized in the following sections:

Test approach
Unresolved issues
Test environment
Test cases and observations

Test Approach

The test results derived from using WebSphere and associated tools were aimed at stressing the Linux kernel and JFS (Journal File System) partitions. We made no attempt at validating the stability or functionality of WebSphere on any specific Linux distribution. We limited server packages to those available to the open source community. This resulted in the selection of trial versions of WebSphere, DB2, and Trade 2 WebSphere applications. We concentrated our testing efforts on Red Hat 7.0 and SuSE 7.0 Linux distributions. The tests were run on 2-way and 4-way Symmetric multi-processing support (SMP) and uniprocessor (UP) systems. We attempted most of the testing on JFS partitions.

On the client side, we used an IBM Internal Use Only application on both Linux and AIX clients. Clients were configured on the same domain with the WebSphere server and on domains outside the realm of the WebSphere server.

Unresolved Issues

At the conclusion of the testing, we have no unresolved issues.

Test Environment

This section describes the software and hardware configurations used during testing.

Linux Distributions

The test efforts focused on commercially available distributions. The LTC continually evaluates its test environment and may add additional distributions in the future. The distributions and releases for this test effort were as follows:

Red Hat 7.0
SuSE 7.0

Linux Kernels

To begin with, we tested with the 2.2 kernel to establish a baseline. Additional kernels came from kernel.org. We replaced the 2.2 kernel with the ones we downloaded as indicated in each of the tests. To address an issue with a raid driver, an ips patch is required to use 2.4.3 and 2.4.4 kernels. This patch was incorporated into the 2.4.5 and 2.4.6 kernels. We used the following kernels:

2.4.3 with ips patch+JFS
2.4.4 with ips patch+JFS
2.4.5+JFS
2.4.6+JFS

Hardware configurations

Name	Processor	Memory	Storage
Test1	2-way PIII(550)	2GB	51GB Hard Drives
Test2	4-way PII(200)	1GB	48GB
Test3	1-way PIII 800	256MB	18GB

Test Cases and Observations

Case 1
Description	Base test for reliability and familiarization. 1,800,000 web pages.
Planned Test Duration	72 hours. Base test for familiarization and base results
Longest Test Duration	100 hours
Hardware	Test1 (2-way SMP server)
Kernel	2.2 (from distribution)
Distribution	SuSE 7.0
Observations	Testing with 300 simulated users executed successfully. The CPU usage varied from 90-100% on both CPUs. Memory usage hovered around 811MB.

Case 2
Description	Initial 2.4.3 Kernel test
Planned Test Duration	72 hours
Longest Test Duration	24 Hours
Hardware	Test2 (4-way SMP server)
Kernel	2.4.3
Distribution	Red Hat 7.0
Observations	Unplanned operator intervention stopped this test. At that time, we chose to move up to the next kernel and begin testing with JFS. The 4 CPUs were kept approximately 80% busy using around 400MB of the 512MB memory.

Case 3
Description	Initial 2.4.4 Kernel with JFS test
Planned Test Duration	72 hours
Longest Test Duration	72 Hours
Hardware	Test2 (4-way SMP server)
Kernel	2.4.4 + JFS
Distribution	Red Hat 7.0
Observations	This test utilized 45-55% of the CPU with 248MB of memory allocated and an additional 79MB of swap space.

Case 4
Description	Initial 2.4.5 Kernel + JFS test
Planned Test Duration	72 hours
Longest Test Duration	72 Hours
Hardware	Test1 (2-way SMP server)
Kernel	2.4.5 + JFS-0.3.3
Distribution	Red Hat 7.0
Observations	This test utilized 95% of the CPU. At the conclusion of the test, ktop indicated 128MB of swap in use. The test returned no errors from 60 clients accessing 6,000,000 web pages.

Case 5
Description	2.4.5 Kernel + JFS test
Planned Test Duration	72 hours
Longest Test Duration	72 Hours
Hardware	Test2 (4-way SMP server)
Kernel	2.4.5 + JFS-0.3.3
Distribution	Red Hat 7.0
Observations	This test utilized 85-95% of the CPU and 138MB of swap. The test returned no errors from 100 clients accessing 6,000,000 web pages.

Case 6
Description	2.4.5 Kernel + JFS test
Planned Test Duration	96 hours
Longest Test Duration	96 Hours
Hardware	Test3 (UP server)
Kernel	2.4.5 + JFS-1.0.0
Distribution	Red Hat 7.0
Observations	This test utilized 85-95% of the CPU and 136MB of swap. The test returned no errors from 100 clients accessing 6,000,000 web pages. Note: Prior to this test, we updated the Trade application to version 2.5. This has a new configuration option called 'real-time'. Setting this option prevents the Trade application from caching any database transactions.

Test Team

Test Lead:	Paul Edgar
Test Engineer:	Li Ge
Test Engineer:	Jim Wigginton

IBM Corporation, DB2, WebSphere and their logos are registered trademarks of International Business Machines. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. RedHat and its logo are registered trademarks of RedHat; Inc. SuSE and its logo are registered trademarks of SuSE AG. Other company, product, and service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.