2. Intro to Directory Server Performance Tuning

This article provides some procedures and options that administrators can use to optimize the performance of their Red Hat Directory Server deployments. Performance tuning a Directory Server instance is unique to each server because of differences for every server in its machine environment, directory size and data type, load and network use, even the types of operations that users and clients perform.
The purpose of this article is to highlight the features that Red Hat Directory Server provides for tracking and assessing server and database performance. There are also some procedures given to help tune server performance. For more in-depth planning information, however, check out the Red Hat Directory Server Deployment Guide, and for exhaustive command-line and UI-based administrative instructions, see the Red Hat Directory Server Administrator's Guide.
The performance tuning features here apply to Red Hat Directory Server 9.0.

2.1. Setting Goals for Directory Server Performance

Performance tuning is simply a way to identify potential (or real) bottlenecks in the normal operating environment of the server and then taking steps to mitigate those bottlenecks.
The general plan for performance tuning is:
  1. Assess the environment. Look at everything around the Directory Server: its usage, the load, the network connection and reliability, most common operations, the physical machine its on, along with any services competing for its resources.
  2. Measure the current Directory Server performance and establish baselines.
  3. Identify the server areas which can be improved.
  4. Make any changes to the Directory Server settings and, potentially, to the host machine.
  5. Measure the Directory Server performance again to see how the changes affected the performance.
Directory Server provides some sort of monitoring in three areas:
  • The server process (counters and logs)
  • The databases (counters)
  • Any database links (counters)
In the Directory Server, most performance measurements are going to be how well the Directory Server retrieves and delivers information to clients. With that in mind, these are the server areas that can be tuned for the best Directory Server performance (and these are the areas covered in this article):
  • Search operations
  • Indexing performance (which affects both search and write operations)
  • Database transactions
  • Database and entry cache settings
  • Database links
Other changes can be made to the host machine's settings or hardware which can also affect Directory Server performance:
  • Available memory (based on directory size)
  • Other servers running on the same machine (which could compete for resources)
  • Distributing user databases across other Directory Server instances on other machines
  • Balancing server loads due to network performance
These changes relate much more to planning an effective Directory Server deployment than changes that can be made to an instance. Reviewing the Deployment Guide can provide more detail about how to plan an optimal enterprise deployment.

2.2. Giving Feedback

If there is any error in this Performance and Tuning Guide or there is any way to improve the documentation, please let us know. Bugs can be filed against the documentation for Red Hat Directory Server through Bugzilla, http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla. Make the bug report as specific as possible, so we can be more effective in correcting any issues:
  1. Select the Red Hat Directory Server product.
  2. Set the component to Doc - performance-and-tuning.
  3. Set the version number to 9.0.
  4. For errors, give the page number (for the PDF) or URL (for the HTML), and give a succinct description of the problem, such as incorrect procedure or typo.
    For enhancements, put in what information needs to be added and why.
  5. Give a clear title for the bug. For example, "Incorrect command example for setup script options" is better than "Bad example".
We appreciate receiving any feedback — requests for new sections, corrections, improvements, enhancements, even new ways of delivering the documentation or new styles of docs. You are welcome to contact Red Hat Content Services directly at docs@redhat.com.