invited netflix talk: JVM issues in the age of scale! We take an under the hood look at java locking, memory model, overheads, serialization, uuid, gc tuning, CMS, ParallelGC, java.
Three free parameters Allocation Rate: your workload! Size: defines runway! Live Set, memory Pause times: Stoppages!
Four free parameters Allocation Rate: your application load! Size: defines runway! Live Set, system memory Pause times: Stoppages! (fourth: Overheads of GC – Space & CPU.)
Did someone ask about defaults? if (FLAG_IS_DEFAULT(ParallelGCThreads)) { assert(ParallelGCThreads == 0, "Default ParallelGCThreads is not 0"); // For very large machines, there are diminishing returns // for large numbers of worker threads. Instead of // hogging the whole system, use a fraction of the workers for every // processor after the first 8. For example, on a 72 cpu machine // and a chosen fraction of 5/8 // use 8 + (72 - 8) * (5/8) == 48 worker threads. unsigned int ncpus = (unsigned int) os::active_processor_count(); return (ncpus <= switch_pt) ? ncpus : (switch_pt + ((ncpus - switch_pt) * num) / den); } else { return ParallelGCThreads; }