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SkyVault Content Services 5.2 » Configuring » Configuring databases

Advanced database configuration properties

As an administrator, you need to edit some advanced properties to customize your database configuration. Many properties, however, do not need to be edited.

SkyVault Content Services 5.2 supports Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, DB2, as well as MySQL and PostgreSQL.

The advanced database configuration properties are categorized into two groups based on their relevance:
  • properties that you SHOULD edit
  • properties that you COULD edit

The following table describes the properties that you SHOULD edit:

Property name Description Default value
db.txn.isolation The JDBC code number for the transaction isolation level, corresponding to those in the java.sql.Connection class. The value of -1 indicates that the database's default transaction isolation level should be used. For the Microsoft SQL Server JDBC driver, the special value of 4096 should be used to enable snapshot isolation. -1
db.pool.initial The number of connections opened when the pool is initialized. 10
db.pool.validate.query The SQL query that is used to ensure that your connections are still alive. This is useful if your database closes long-running connections after periods of inactivity. For Oracle database, use SELECT 1 from dual

For MySQL database, use SELECT 1

For SQL Server database, use SELECT 1

For PostgreSQL database, use SELECT 1

The following table describes the properties that you COULD edit:

Property name Description Default value
db.pool.statements.enable A Boolean property. When set to true it indicates that all pre-compiled statements used on a connection will be kept open and cached for reuse. true
db.pool.statements.max The maximum number of pre-compiled statements to cache for each connection. The default is 40. Note that Oracle does not allow more that 50 by default. 40
db.pool.idle The maximum number of connections that are not in use kept open. 10
db.pool.max The maximum number of connections in the pool. See the Note below for more information on this property. 100
db.pool.min The minimum number of connections in the pool. 10
db.pool.wait.max Time (in milliseconds) to wait for a connection to be returned before generating an exception when connections are unavailable. A value of 0 or -1 indicates that the exception should not be generated. -1
db.pool.validate.borrow A Boolean property. When set to true it indicates that connections will be validated before being borrowed from the pool. true
db.pool.validate.return A Boolean property. When set to true it indicates that connections will be validated before being returned to the pool. false
db.pool.evict.interval Indicates the interval (in milliseconds) between eviction runs. If the value of this property is zero or less, idle objects will not be evicted in the background. 600000
db.pool.evict.idle.min The minimum number of milliseconds that a connection may remain idle before it is eligible for eviction. 1800000
db.pool.evict.validate A Boolean property. When set to true it indicates that the idle connections will be validated during eviction runs. false
db.pool.abandoned.detect A Boolean property. When set to true it indicates that a connection is considered abandoned and eligible for removal if it has been idle longer than the db.pool.abandoned.time. false
db.pool.abandoned.time The time in seconds before an abandoned connection can be removed. 300

The db.pool.max property is the most important. By default, each SkyVault Content Services instance is configured to use up to a maximum of 100. All operations require a database connection, which places a hard upper limit on the amount of concurrent requests a single instance can service (that is, 40), from all protocols, by default.

Most Java application servers have higher default settings for concurrent access (Tomcat allows up to 200 concurrent HTTP requests by default). Coupled with other threads in SkyVault Content Services (non-HTTP protocol threads, background jobs, and so on) this can quickly result in excessive contention for database connections, manifesting as poor performance for users.

If you are using SkyVault Content Services in anything other than a single-user evaluation mode, increase the maximum size of the database connection pool to at least the following setting.
[number of application server worker threads] + 75.
For a Tomcat default HTTP worker thread configuration, and with all other thread pools left at the defaults, this means this property should be set to at least 275.
To increase the database connection pool, add the db.pool.max property to the SkyVault.global.properties file and set it to the recommended value of 100, for example: 
db.pool.max=100
For clarity, add this property immediately after the other database properties.
Important: After increasing the size of the database connection pools, you must also increase the number of concurrent connections your database can handle to at least the size of the cumulative connection pools. In a cluster, each node has its own independent database connection pool. You must configure sufficient database connections for all of the cluster nodes to be able to connect simultaneously. We recommend that you configure at least 10 more connections to the database than are configured cumulatively across all of the connection pools to ensure that you can still connect to the database even if SkyVault Content Services saturates its own connection pools. Remember to factor in cluster nodes (which can each use up to 275 database connections) as well as connections required by other applications that are using the same database server as SkyVault Content Services.

The precise mechanism for reconfiguring your database's connection limit depends on the relational database product you are using; contact your DBA for configuration details.

Parent topic: Configuring databases

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