Tune session management

WebSphere Application Server - Express for iSeries session support has features for tuning session performance and operating characteristics. You configure these options in the WebSphere administrative console. The settings are listed by which page in the console that they appear.

Session management

The Session Management page of the console contains these settings that are related to performance tuning:

• Overflow and Maximum in-memory session count
  These settings specify the maximum number of sessions that are retained in memory, and whether or not to ever exceed that number. For more information, see Maximum in-memory session count.

• Serialize session access
  Specifies that concurrent session access in a given server is not allowed.

Tuning recommendations

It is recommended that you follow these guidelines to ensure optimal performance:

• In the Session Manager Service, set the Maximum in-memory session count value to a number close to the average number of active sessions. If there are frequent periods where more sessions are active, increasing the base memory value further might improve performance. Also enable Allow overflow.
• Do not enable persistent sessions unless the application requires them. If persistent sessions are required, enable multi-row sessions.
• If possible, invalidate finished sessions promptly in your application. Use the javax.servlet.http.HttpSession.invalidate() method to invalidate these sessions. Also set the Invalidation Timeout to the smallest value that is acceptable for your application. If you set it too small, sessions timeout prematurely. You might need to do some testing to determine the appropriate value for your application.