Tomcat/Cocoon Performance on Production Sites?

Saqib Ali asks: "A Tomcat/Cocoon setup can be used as a framework for publishing XML content. I have this setup running in testing environment for about 5 months now, and would like to move it into production. Is anyone using a similar setup and can comment on Tomcat's ability in handling the load from a production environment, or should we look at other Java Servlet engines like BEA, Jetty or Resin? If Open Source solutions can't work under these kind of pressure what should we be looking at in terms of different commercial solutions for publishing XML content?" A similar question with respect to Tomcat and Jetty was discussed in this previous discussion. What effects does using Cocoon have on Tomcat-based environments?

Comments

Testing?

[FreeLinux]

I have this setup running in testing environment for about 5 months now, and would like to move it into production.

I can't find the words to ask this without sounding like an ass but, I really don't mean to be.

I have to ask though, what have you been testing for the past 5 months. When testing a server, web, mail, database, whatever, one of the early tests that I perform is load testing. Have you not done load testing to determine if Cocoon will handle your anticipated load and then some?

Why waste 5 months development time on a product that you don't know will support the load? Suppose it doesn't handle it (which I doubt), are you going to chuck 5 months work to move to BEA, WebSphere, IIS????? What have you been testing?

I concur

[msuzio]

I've used both Tomcat and Resin (Tomcat much more back in the 3.x days, but a little 4.x too). I found Resin to be at least somewhat faster (definately the JSP engine was a lot faster), easier to configure, and generally well worth $500/server.

That said, Tomcat works fine for my needs, but I have not tested it under heavy loads. I *have* stress-tested Resin, and I can say it has never failed me :-). I find Resin + Apache a great combination (Resin handles application stuff, Apache handles static data + security needs).