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Monitoring operating system activity

For optimal performance, ensure that IBM Content Search Services effectively uses your operating system resources. Use your operating system diagnostic tools and utilities to monitor system activity.

Attention: Before adjusting IBM Content Search Services parameters that are referred to below, review the documentation for each parameter mentioned below and follow the recommendations for optimal settings.

Use the information in the following table to troubleshoot system performance.

Table 1. Troubleshooting based on system activity
System activity symptom Possible causes and troubleshooting strategies
Medium or low processor activity during indexing (typically 70% or less) indicates that IBM Content Search Services is not using the processor optimally.
  • Documents are not submitted fast enough for indexing. To validate, monitor queues and check whether the input queue size is low, relative to the configured input queue size. If so, ensure that the client is pushing documents fast enough to the server.
  • There is insufficient memory on the computer on which the IBM Content Search Services server runs. Monitor memory consumption on the server computer. Consider reserving memory or increasing the maximum heap size.
  • Indexing is constrained by I/O activity. The disk I/O is a bottleneck. Monitor disk activity and see the next section ("Too much disk activity during indexing") for recommendations.
  • The IBM Content Search Services server configuration is not optimal. For example, the number of preprocessing threads, tokenizers, or indexing threads might be too low. See the documentation for each parameter for recommendations on optimal settings.
  • The queue size is too small. Monitor queues and ensure that indexing progresses smoothly. Also ensure that the queue size is appropriate for your heap memory allocation and the size of documents that you are processing. Note that increasing the queue size too high can have a negative impact on performance.
Too much disk activity during indexing (typically greater than 80%) can indicate that the disk I/O is a bottleneck
  • The disk is too slow. Some IBM Content Search Services files (such as program files, configuration files, logs, or collection data) might be stored on a remote disk, a disk with high latency, or disk with limited throughput. For the temporary folder, consider using a RAM drive, increasing the disk block size, or using a faster disk.
  • Other programs are using the disk in parallel to IBM Content Search Services. To determine whether this is a problem, shut down other applications.
  • There is insufficient available memory. Consider reserving memory for the IBM Content Search Services computer, or increasing the maximum heap size.
  • Multiple collections are being indexed simultaneously. If this is the cause, consider storing the data for different collections on different disks.
  • Index merge operations occur too frequently. Consider increasing the values of the following indexing parameters: BufferSize, MergeFactor, and MaxMergeMB.
The IBM Content Search Services server consumes most of the heap memory allocation.
When IBM Content Search Services memory consumption is high (even without out-of-memory errors), performance can degrade due to frequent JVM garbage collection calls and more expensive memory management.
  • Not enough heap memory is allocated to IBM Content Search Services. Consider increasing the heap memory by increasing the value of the maxHeapSize parameter. Ensure that you have enough available memory on the IBM Content Search Services computer.
  • Queue size setting might be too high. Check the queue size settings. If necessary, reduce the queue sizes.
  • Too many preprocessing and indexing threads are defined. Check how many preprocessing and indexing threads are defined. If necessary, reduce the number of threads.
  • Too many collections are indexed concurrently. If possible, limit the number of concurrently indexed collections.
Overall memory consumption on the IBM Content Search Services computer is very high, or higher than the physical memory. Operating system memory management (using virtual memory, garbage collection, and so on) starts to have a noticeable effect on the overall system performance, even when out-of-memory errors do not occur.
  • Too many applications are running. Consider shutting down applications or distributing applications to different computers.
  • Physical memory is too small. Increase the physical memory or reserve more physical memory (if applicable).
CPU consumption is very high and search times are very slow when indexing and searching on the same computer. See Limiting IBM Content Search Services resource consumption.


Last updated: March 2016
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