How to compute or know the correct value for Xmx and xms?

[icesnake]

I have known how to set the Xmx and Xms value for an application but how can I know the correct value for these parameters to optimize the performance of my app? I'm using tomcat 6 and windows xp. Thanks

[JosAH]

I have known how to set the Xmx and Xms value for an application but how can I know the correct value for these parameters to optimize the performance of my app? I'm using tomcat 6 and windows xp. Thanks

Better stay away from them: if your application runs fine, don't touch them; if your application runs out of memory increase the mx value; if it runs out of stack space increase the ms value. For all other situation: leave them alone.

kind regards,

Jos

[icesnake]

Better stay away from them: if your application runs fine, don't touch them; if your application runs out of memory increase the mx value; if it runs out of stack space increase the ms value. For all other situation: leave them alone.

kind regards,

Jos

My app had an outOfMemory Java heap error. I know that there are two reasons for it to happen either the max memory allocation is not enough or my app has a memory leak. My question is if I have to increase the max memory allocation, is there a way to know how much I have to increase? or is it just estimation

[Tolls]

Estimation.
It all comes down to figuring out what it is you're expecting the code to do (that is show big the structures it's expected to work with are)...and profiling. The latter will also help to find memory leaks, or potential memory hot spots where you may be holding onto more data in memory than you actually need to.

[icesnake]

Estimation.
It all comes down to figuring out what it is you're expecting the code to do (that is show big the structures it's expected to work with are)...and profiling. The latter will also help to find memory leaks, or potential memory hot spots where you may be holding onto more data in memory than you actually need to.

I have another question, where can I see the allocated Xmx and Xms value if it is not specified? Besides jconsole and profiler is there another way I can see the allocated memory for the application?

Thanks.

[Tolls]

They'll be the default, which is 2Mb initial (Xms) and 64Mb max (Xmx).

By the way, Jos has a typo above..it's Xss for the stack size. Xms is the start memory size.

I will usually define a size for a web server simply because I have never been involved in a project where 64Mb would be sufficient. Also, once you know how much memory your system needs then you may as well set Xms to the same as Xmx since it removes the need for the JVM to grab memory as it's running, and can improve performance after a restart.