Tomcat native library benefits

Question

Can anyone advise on the main benefits of installing the Tomcat native library?

I am running a standard installation of Tomcat to serve a moderately complex intranet based web app using Ext Js on the front end so lots of javascript and AJAX over the network and VPN from various locations.

Is it even worth installing this library for the comparatively small amount of requests it will be getting.

The app can be very slow at times and I'm looking to boost performance. I am already refactoring Java code based on profile data but as the problem seems to be more generalised I am also looking at the app server configuration and I can't seem to find any detail on whether this library would actually benefit me in this scenario.

Thank you

Answer 1

I assume you are speaking about Tomcat APR. I personally don't believe that by simply switching the connector from non-native to native will automagically solve your performance problems.

Unless you have exercised all code inefficiencies (it seems that you are doing this already with the help of profiler) and solved them, it is probably not worth it.

I would envisage that APR helps in cases where most of requests are static and delivering static content becomes a bottleneck. To achieve this, you probably need to be delivering millions pages per day and having thread pool going through the roof (which I assume is not likely for your intranet).