by Karun Subramanian
on October 25, 2014
‘Threads’ is perhaps the most misunderstood component among Application support engineers and even among Software Developers. Take a look at the following questions that we typically come across in our glorious support career:
- What does it mean to say ‘There must be hung Threads’ in the Application?
- Have you exhausted the available Threads in Application Server?
- Which Thread Pool is used for Web Container?
- Do I have to configure the number of JDBC Connections in the connection pool equal to the number of Threads I have in the Application Server?
- How can I find out which thread is currently running in the Application Server?
- Is ‘number of Threads’ configurable? Can I have unlimited Threads?
- How can I find out all Threads that are currently running?
- Is there a Thread Dead Lock going on?
- How can I kill hung Threads?
Well, after going through this three part series, you will be able to answer all the above questions.
What is a Thread?
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by Karun Subramanian
on October 17, 2014
by Karun Subramanian
on October 3, 2014
Over half a billion systems are estimated to be impacted by Shellshock aka Bash Bug. The bug opens the door to a hacker to take over system.
Who is impacted ?
If you have Bash installed on your system, you are impacted. Bash, by default, is present on most of the Unix and Mac OS platforms. It does not matter which software products you run on top of the Operating System (such as Application Servers, Database servers etc). If you are Unix or Mac OS, changes are you are impacted.
If you are running Jboss (any Jboss product such as Application Server, EAP, SOA, BPM suites etc) on Windows platform, sit back and relax. Windows does not have bash and you don’t have to worry about Shellshock. However, if you have cygwin installed in your system, then you may be vulnerable as cygwin comes with Bash.
How to implement the fix ?
Trendmicro has the most upto date information on the fix. Check out the link http://www.trendmicro.com/us/security/shellshock-bash-bug-exploit/index.html
Good luck
by Karun Subramanian
on September 13, 2014
When your application server is hung for whatever reason, the end-user experience takes a hit and your reputation as an Application Support engineer tanks. While the most important activity is to restore service, which may involve recycling your application server, you must act swiftly to collect as much diagnostics information as possible before you do that. In my experience, obtaining Java Heap dump and Thread dump are extremely valuable in such cases. Here is how you obtain these dumps for a JBoss Application server. As a matter of fact, this method will equally work for any JEE Application server (even though Application Servers like IBM WebSphere provide utilities/commands to do this)
Here we go:
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by Karun Subramanian
on September 11, 2014
Recently, I had the privilege to talk to Sri Chaganty, CTO and co founder of AppEnsure.
AppEnsure is probably the newest (as of Sep 2014) APM vendor entering this competitive yet lucrative market. As Sri walked me through the product, I had several ‘Wow, that’s way too cool’ moments. In this article, I would like to share some of the features that I thought were brilliant.
1. Up and running in minutes
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by Karun Subramanian
on September 9, 2014
The truth. If you don’t have a reliable APM (Application Performance Management) solution implemented in your environment, you are walking on a minefield. You never know when that Application Server is going to crash, or when that File server is going to run out of space or when that Web Server is going to run out threads and be a victim to a DOS attack. Simply put, you want to know about an issue before your customer does. Period. A dependable APM solution and help you do just that.
In this article, I would like to answer some of the very basic yet critical questions in the field of APM. Specifically, I will explain the following:
1. What is an APM solution ?
2. How a reliable APM can help you increase your profits ?
3. How to find the right APM solution ?
4. How to implement the chosen APM solution ?
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by Karun Subramanian
on August 6, 2014
Hi all !
I have put together a one page poster showing the important Java command line options. Download it, print it and stick it in your cube. It will come in handy.
Enjoy !!
PS: It may take about 30 seconds to load
by Karun Subramanian
on August 3, 2014
Have you ever tried to find out the entire command line arguments for the ‘java’ command that starts your application in Windows ? Have you ever tried to find out which files or DLLs are opened by your Java Application in Windows ? The Windows Task Manager is OK but it does not give you the deeper insight that you would need to answer the above questions. Welcome to Process Explorer.
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by Karun Subramanian
on July 30, 2014
Oracle’s latest edition of the world’s biggest software platform, Java 8 was released on March 2014. Here are the 5 things you need to know about this edition of this marvelous language.
1. Introduction of Lambda Expressions.
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by Karun Subramanian
on July 27, 2014
Let’s face it. Nobody likes a slow application. It is our job to make sure our applications fulfill the functionality need completely, but at the same time delivers good user experience.
In 16 years of my experience in technical support primarily in the world of JEE, while I cannot honestly say ‘I have seen it all’, I can say “I have seen a lot“. Here are the top 10 reasons why your Java application may slow.
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