Windows Forum

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Domino server swapping/paging

0 helpful
5 replies

by cpfeiffe

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.
I have found that the Lotus Notes (Domino server) swaps excessively even when there is plenty of free RAM. My first experience was running it on Solaris 6 which does not swap at all when there is over X free RAM. Immediately the Domino server put more stuff into swap than into RAM. I told the Notes admin this was a problem and Lotus should have a recommended setting but he blew me off. I later found a doc from Lotus that recommended tuning kernel memory settings on Solaris. Now I have headed a performance project for all servers and see this problem on the W2K servers (only ones running Lotus). Again I approach the Lotus admin with no results. I'm wondering if anyone has seen this and has a way to fix it. I have work arounds that do work such as nulling the swap file or putting swap on RAMDISK, but there must be a clean, Lotus approved approach. The notes admin still refuses to contact Lotus on this issue. The only guides I see online suggest sizing for RAM and swap, but that doesn't help tune how swap is utilized.

5 replies

by sgt_shultz

you don't mention type of domino server (mail? application? web?) or version. or what is performance complaint. (always slow? slow at peak times?) or what is goal...(add more users? improve stability?) i don't know if that is sufficient data to make any performance tuning conclusions. and sounds like you have visited the extensive performance website at ibm...but in case not see if this stuff helps any:
http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd

LargeSystemCache
Windows NT and Windows 2000 have a disk-I/O cache called the LargeSystemCache. You can set it to ?Maximize data throughput for file sharing,? ?Maximize data throughput for network applications," or "Minimize memory used." In Windows NT, there is also a fourth setting to "balance file sharing and network applications."
The default setting is to favor file sharing, which uses more memory than the network application setting and the minimize memory settings. We have recently observed in the lab that leaving the default setting favoring file sharing can reduce data disk utilization by 15 percent at high usage. So, we are considering changing our current recommendation of setting the cache to favor network applications and recommend setting it to favor file sharing (the default). If your server memory is a bottleneck, you should set the cache to favor network applications or even, in extreme situations, to minimize memory.

by sgt_shultz

To change the LargeSystemCache setting in Windows 2000, open the Control Panel, double-click the Network and Dial-up Connections icon, double-click Local Area Connection, click the Properties button, and select File And Printer Sharing For Microsoft Networks. For Windows NT, open the Control Panel, double-click the Network icon, click the Services tab, select the server icon, and then click the Properties button. You can then see the four options; select "maximum throughput for file sharing."
Optimize performance for applications or background services
You should optimize the performance for background applications and services to ensure that a foreground application doesn?t dominate the server resources. Domino is considered to be a background application by the OS. Using the server interactively is considered a foreground application and will take priority over Domino. So if you have the default settings in the OS and you are using the server interactively, you may negatively affect Domino performance.

To set the priority for background services in Windows 2000, open the Control Panel, double-click System, click the Advanced tab, click the Performance Options button, and select Background services. To set the priority in Windows NT, open the Control Panel, double-click the System icon, click the Performance tab, and then move the "Select the performance boost for the foreground application" slider to None.

by cpfeiffe

Thanks for the feeback. I've already looked at everything here. I don't know much about the server side (I'm a Unix admin). We are on Notes 5.0.8b mail client. The problem is with all Domino servers (mail/app). We have more than enough RAM in most of them. In one case we have a mail server with 4 GB RAM. It never utilizes more than 1 GB of RAM, but swaps heavily. I need a way to reduce the swapping. I am heading a performance project and this is why I'm looking at this. The Notes admin here doesn't believe there is anything you can do from a Lotus prospective and refuses to even contact Lotus. There must be a reason that Domino is swapping so heavily. Note that other Windows servers which are running other applications such as IIS, file/print, SQL, oracle, etc. don't have this issue. On those servers paging is minimal (unless the server is maxed out on RAM in which case you would expect heavier paging). Any more thoughts?

This discussion is closed to new replies.