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Reliable Java Threading w/ Linux 2.4?
mikej asks: "I'm involved in an ongoing saga that attempts to get an application running a large number of Java threads (30-60 sustained, 300+ peak) reliably. My last large hurtle was the context switching delay on the 2.2 kernel, which the 2.4 series has _nicely_ fixed. Now I'm running into problems keeping the JVM alive under threadload. The Sun and IBM java mailing lists and newsgroups are full of complaints concerning threading problems on Linux, and I'm faced with the choice of moving the system to Solaris (something that I very much do not want to do). Has anyone seen a system like this in action, and is there an especially successful combination of SDK/glibc/kernel?"
A very very sound idea!
BUT to add to this Sun has done a lot with the new HotSpot server and threading with it is a lot better! With the Blackdown JVM i would consistently have a server (running maybe 15 threads) take down the JVM almost constantly if 'sunwjit' was used! I have seen this problem a lot less with the hotspot server which i am currently running on a slackware 7 system with linux 2.4.0!
One idea might be to setup Solaris 8 on an intel box, or get a Ultra 10 (they are pretty cheap) and see how things work there!
Also, there are many ways you could shoot yourself in the foot with that many threads ? Could GC be a problem ? Are you reusing the threads correctly ? Lots of stuff to think off that could cause problem! You might want to look at "Taming Java Threads" by Allen Holub... good read and could help you!
just my $0.02
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