Sorry about double post. Actually I want to move my question on StackOverflow to ServerFault but it seems like I can't do it. Below is my question:
I have a web application and required load balancing in Tomcat. My hardware spec is 5 unit of 32 GB RAM quad-core processors 64 bit OS.
Should I have
- 5 Tomcats, one in each machine with -Xmx around 30GB and higher maxThreads
- A bigger number of Tomcats with lower -Xmx, e.g. 25 Tomcats, 5 in each machine with -Xmx around 6GB and default maxThreads
I have load balancer using mod_proxy_balancer before Tomcats. Let assume there is no bottle neck at database layer to simplify the situation. For suggestion #1, the author for http://www.theserverside.com/news/1363681/Scaling-Your-Java-EE-Applications said 12GB max ram cause high pause time during gc and recommend to use only 3GB. He did not share his gc setting so I am not sure can it be fine-tuned further.
Let me know if you need more info.
Thanks.