[nylug-talk] Excesive memory usage by Java (ranty)

[Michael Bacarella]

On Jan 22, 2008 11:26 AM, sixtyfourbeets <sixtyfourbeets at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think I've figured out the reason the Java based application I was
> using was using so much memory
> and locking up, freezing, and assorted other problems that arise with
> using a Java based application.

Wild guess is that you have a heap size configured larger than the
amount of RAM in the machine.

As hard as it is to do, suspend your disgust for Java for a second and
look at this objectively.

Have you ruled out external factors?

For instance, can you run this charting application on one host with
_nothing_ else running and still get the same lousy performance?  When
it runs on a host by itself, is it burning a lot of CPU or is it
swapping?  Or is it spending most of its time waiting in a system
call?  strace, ltrace, top, time are your friends here.