Mid-tier (web server) rebooting slow

[dstephens22]

I hope "deployment" is the correct group to post to.

Does anyone have tips on how to improve the reboot time of the SAS Information Portal?

When I need to restart the web services it can take up to 30 minutes to actually start working again. 

thanks for the help,

Dave

[RobbieFreddie]

When you say restart the web services, are you speaking of a WebSphere instance ?  Don't list all your details here, but the power behind the machine that is hosting the Mid-tier (web-server) can affect the start up time greatly.  I would also find the log file locations for WebSphere (or whatever platform you are using) and "tail -f" (if in Unix) the log file while the restart is going on.  You can watch as the start up appends logging information to the log file, and you may be able to notice where it's spending most of it's time, and if it is having any major issues or errors.

If you are in Unix or Windows would probably make a big difference on your approach to diagnosing the problem here, but I'd advise the log files as a starting point 🙂

[MikeCarman_SAS]

If by chance your implementation utilizes JBOSS there is a SAS Usage note regarding the pre-unpacking of the web app .ear files.  This can improve the mid-tier start time when JBOSS is the Web app server. 

see Usage Note 37052: Instructions for manually unpacking (exploding) SAS® Web-application .ear files

[diser]

Mike, thanks for the link! We do have JBOSS and boot takes a really long time, I even had to remove several unneeded ear files. I'll try this option tomorrow.

[Technolero]

RobbieFreddie made a good point to use the tail -f command to watch the log as your web application server starts.  You will be amazed at how much is going on in the background.  Your first step should be to run this process to see what is going on and to identify any warnings or errors that could impact restart time.

We run our web tier on jboss and a Solaris server, and the total "restart" time can take almost an hour.  Just starting the SAS Remote Services, Deployment Tester, etc only takes a minute.  The majority of the time is taken up by the web application server deploying the web applications, such as Web Report Studio, Information Delivery Portal, BI Dashboard, etc.  I would expect that the length of time to "restart" is primarily dependent upon the server speed (and other characteristics) and the number of web applications that you deploy.  Other configuration issues can also impact restart time, such as trying to "discover" services on other servers.

[boschy]

Yes indeed. Our Websphere start-up can take 10-15 mins...quite short compared to other examples here. But given that 10-15 SAS web applications are being launched in 1 or more containers, you'll find that 3-5 mins for each one will add up significantly.

The key thing is to ensure that the scripts to shutdown and start up do so CLEANLY. No left-over processes, no weird errors in the logs, etc. Anything strange needs to be investigated (Google, SAS Notes, SAS track).