To get the best possible performance from your applications, you must continuously monitor and tune your ABL code, OpenEdge database, and Progress Application Server for OpenEdge. You must iterate in order to optimize performance.

Performance considerations

Each part of this guide is designed to move you closer to optimum application performance:
  • By design offers new performance features demonstrate the performances gains achieved simply by moving to the current release of OpenEdge.
  • Develop provides guidelines to create your physical database and code your applications to perform well.
  • Configure gives tips for initializing database servers and application server instances in test, staging, and production.
  • Tune, looks at the iterative process of continuously improving performance.

Obtaining optimal performance is a process that starts as you build your applications. For that reason, it is important to apply the recommendations in this guide during each phase of development, testing, staging, and production. Applying the tuning recommendations to your production environment may not yield the same benefits as applying the principles throughout your development life cycle. There are key opportunities to optimize your application performance in each phase.

Note: Every application is unique. A one-size-fits-all approach is not realistic. This guide offers a baseline for many applications. The goal is to introduce concepts and tools for you to consider and apply to your application environment.

Tuning: main steps

Tuning is a continuous process, and using a scientific approach to tuning is a best practice. The scientific approach to tuning relies on isolating and changing a single factor at a time. The isolated change is tested and if that change improves performance when the tests are re-run, then a performance gain can be verified. If performance does not improve, then the isolated change can be reversed, and an alternate factor can be changed and tested in the next iteration.

The steps in the performance tuning cycle include:

  1. Monitor your overall application performance to look for opportunities to improve performance.
  2. Analyze the results you are monitoring through OpenEdge Management, PROMON, virtual system tables, OpenEdge HealthScanner, or log files. Determine where the issue is: Is it in the code, the application server, or the database server?
  3. Isolate the symptom. Determine which logs, tools, and tests to use to isolate the source of the bottlenecks?
  4. Change a single setting at a time.
  5. Test for any improvements and possible loss of performance.
  6. Repeat the cycle and monitor the overall performance of your application, to confirm whether there are continued performance gains.