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IntroductionAs you plan your Jaspersoft project, you may wonder what the best way to start is, and how you can lower your overall project risk. You may wonder what kind of experience and training your team will need, and what kind of development tasks are the most high-risk. We take a look at these problems, and ways to solve them. The solutions we present here are based on our customers' experience, and the ways in which they successfully tackled common problems. We hope it will help your project succeed also. We first talk about the great Jaspersoft resources you have access to, and in the second half of the document, we talk about specific items to make your project a success. [toc]The Jaspersoft resources at your disposalAs your project advances, you may need some extra help to get you past normal project roadblocks. Don't forget that you have the Support team, training resources, Customer wiki articles, and a Customer Success team that can help you with your projects. The Support TeamYou file tickets with the Support team when you're having problems with the product in terms of installation, usage, configuration, and diagnosing problems. They are a great resource for getting you through your issues if you have questions or just in need of help. For a complete description of what support covers and doesn't, please see our online resource - http://www.jaspersoft.com/policies-and-procedures. Training ServicesWe have found that our customers gain the most out of their Jaspersoft investment by enrolling in training - they are more self-sufficient, and most of all, get their projects done faster. For most of clients, we recommend the 4-day Technical Training, which covers how to use our entire product suite - JasperReports Server, the Jaspersoft Studio and Jasper ETL. For a full listing of what's available through training, please check http://www.jaspersoft.com/training. Customer SuccessOur team of consultants can help you get through tough technical problems, and can reduce your project risk and overall development costs. By engaging them, you"˜ll have expert technical help as well as someone who can give you general guidance and share their experience with the products. They can do your customizations, report development and security implementation using Jaspersoft best practices, showing you how to do it and how to maintain it. To find out more about Customer Success, please check http://www.jaspersoft.com/professional-services. Online resourcesThere are also online resources that you should know about: The Jaspersoft Community Site and the knowledge search available through the Customer Support Portal. Our Community Site, contains documentation, Wiki articles that deal with specific technical issues, community questions and answers, and an exchange of extensions that may add additional capabilities to your Jaspersoft implementation. The Community Wiki contains how-to articles with step-by-step instructions, performance and troubleshooting tips, as well as solutions to common problems. The knowledge search tool allows you to search through all our documentation, community blogs, and community site articles and questions, and is frequently the fastest way to get the answers to your questions. It's available on your support page as soon as you've logged into the Customer Support portal. You can also access the Dr, Jaspersoft resources on YouTube for video lessons. Making your project a successHere are some items that you'll need to address as you start your project. If you are able to tackle these problems up-front, you'll increase your chances of success. Defining your project scope and timelinesIt's worth remembering the basics here: your project scope and project timelines. Depending on the technical complexity, some items can have a higher level of project risk. Check the table below. If you have a lot of high-complexity items, you might consider engaging our Customer Sucess team, who can put a solution in place for your project. ItemRiskDescriptionUI - developing custom themesLowYou'll need to a UI developer comfortable with CSS files.UI - adding or modifying JSPsLowYou'll need a JSP developer.Developing canned reportsLow/MediumYou'll need someone who can use Studio and knows Java and SQL. JasperSoft provides a 2 days iReports Designer training to make anyone feel comfortable using iReport Designer.Developing domains for ad hocLow/MediumYou'll need someone who knows how to use the server product, who understands databases and the meaning of the data in business terms. Understanding and being able to write SQL queries is not mandatory but would help a lot.Developing security files for domainsMediumYou'll need a Java developer to implement security rules. The process is well-established, but requires technical skill.Develop OLAP cubesMedium/HighRequires someone who knows the database, knows about optimizing database for use with OLAP cubes, and has some familiarity with MDX (the query language for OLAP cubes)Setting up Single Sign On (SSO) - LDAPMediumThis requires using our Authentication Cookbook guide and someone comfortable with application servers and Java development. If they follow the instructions in the cookbook, they should be fine.Setting up SSO - CASMediumSame comment as aboveSetting up SSO - other technologyHighThis will require custom software development including Java coding.Modifying server functionality (NOT using platform API's)HighThis will require custom software development, and be performed by the CS team or by someone who is very familiar with the product and with Java. This type of development is high-risk, since there is no guarantee that it won't break if you upgrade to a later version of JasperReports Server.Modifying server functionality (using platform API's)HighThis will require custom software development, and be performed by the PS team or by someone who is very familiar with the product and with Java. This type of development is less risky than not using platform API's, but still requires someone expert enough to know how to use them.Developing custom datasourcesHighThis will require custom software development, and is for an expert Java developer or can be performed by our CS team.Integration with web servicesMediumRequires someone experienced in developing applications with web services, but not especially hard. We have documentation on using Web Services with JSON data adapter.Integration with IframesLowThis can be done by a developer.Integrating JasperReports Server with non-Java resourcesMedium/HighExamples of this would be integrating JRS with Microsoft's .NET environment, PHP, Ruby on Rails, etc. This will vary in complexity, but if you are willing to use web services with an installed JasperReports Server, you can minimize the risk.ETL JobsMedium/HighA customer's ETL needs will vary depending on how complex the data integration tasks are. The greater the number of datasources you wish to integrate, the higher the complexity. There is also the inherent ramp-up time you will spend in training yourself to use the Jaspersoft ETL tool.Putting together a teamDepending on your project size and complexity you will need to staff your project with: A project manager - this person will manage the timelines, scope and teamA Java developer - this person will become the JRS expert, and we should focus on enabling this person on the technical materialA business analyst - Often the project manager doubles in this role. This person knows the business domain, knows what the reports should look like, and whether or not the data behind the reports make sense.A database administrator - while not fulltime on a project, a Java developer will often need a DBA to help tune SQL queries and to optimize the database. They're very handy when dealing with performance issues and ETL.A system administrator - often the Java developer doubles in this role. This person can do administrative tasks such as restarting servers, deploying JRS, deploying custom classes, modifying scripts for tuning, exporting and importing repositories, among others.Your team should be comfortable with Java technologies, and be able to work with databases. We also highly recommend that your team enroll in one or more of our many product training courses, which will teach or improve your knowledge of our product suite. ContactsFor more details, check the Support portal at http://support.jaspersoft.com The Support team can also be contacted by email: support@jaspersoft.com If you have other questions or concerns please contact your sales representative.

IntroductionViewing call traces is an important debugging activity, which allows the developer to see exactly what methods the applications is calling, in what order, and how much time it takes to execute. This is useful for looking analyzing bottlenecks, and for verifying that classes that you expected to run actually did. While there are many tools out in the market that do this, Visual VM stands out because it's part of the JDK itself; no extra expense, and no extra downloads are necessary. Enable JMX in the Tomcat startup scriptTo be able to run Visual VM, you'll need to modify the Tomcat startup scripts, and activate JMX. To activate JMX, open up the setenv.bat or setenv.sh file in the [TOMCAT_HOME]/bin directory and add the lines below. I did this on a Windows machine; you'll have to substitute REM for # in a Unix-based system. REM For enabling JMX (for using with Visual VM)set CATALINA_OPTS=-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremoteset CATALINA_OPTS=%CATALINA_OPTS% -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=8999set CATALINA_OPTS=%CATALINA_OPTS% -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=falseset CATALINA_OPTS=%CATALINA_OPTS% -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false -Djava.rmi.server.hostname=localhost[/code]The "8999" could be any open port you want; that value is just an example. When you are done testing with Visual VM, I suggest you add a "REM" (the Windows command for commenting out a line) at the start of each line. That way you can come back later, remove the REM's, and test again. Use the Visual VM tool in the JDKBrowse to where you've installed the JDK, and in the bin directory, you should the VisualVM executable. It's a graphical desktop application. On Windows environments, it appears at "jvisualvm.exe"; in Unix-based systems, it appears simply as "jvisualvm." Go ahead and double-click on it. Make sure to add the "VisualVM-Sampler" pluginThis plugin will record the application call trace, so you've got to install it if it's not already there. To check the installed plug-ins, choose "Tools -> Plugins" from the menu, and a new pop-up will appear. Check the VisualVM-Sample choice, and click "Install." This will take through the installation process, eventually asking you to re-start the application. Once you restart, you'll see that the "VisualVM-Sampler" plugin now appears under the "Installed" tab. Running Visual VMNow that you have the plugin installed, it's time to connect Visual VM with Tomcat. At this point, you should have already restarted Tomcat with the updated setenv file. Choose "File -> Add JMX Connection", and fill in Connection details. If you're running this test locally, you'll put something like "localhost:8999", where the "8999" is the port you defined in the setenv script earlier. After you click "OK", your connection will appear in the "Applications" bar on the left, like below: Double-click on the entry, and you'll get a new set of options: Click on the "Sampler" tab, if you haven't done so already, and now you're ready to record the application call traces. Click on the CPU button, and you should now see call activity, like below: At this point, go ahead and do the application activity you were interested in, whether it's executing reports, running ad hoc, or some area of the application. This will generate the call trace you were interested in testing, which will result in something like what you see below: When you're done, hit the "Stop" button. Then click the "Snapshot" button, which will create a new tab, like what you see below: This will give you a complete call trace, starting at the individual thread level, which you investigate by drilling down into. Or, if you want to check a particular class, you can search for it by doing a Ctrl-F and filling in the name of the class. The result will be the location in the call tree where that class gets executed.

Note: Tomcat 7 is no longer supported in our latest version 8.x. Please check the link here for similar functionality on Tomcat 9. Apache Tomcat 9 documentation on the ExpiresFilter IntroductionIn a previous article, I talked about setting up a cache filter in Tomcat 6. The purpose of that filter was to add header information to static files so that they don't expire. This lightens the load on the Tomcat server, since the browser will first check its cache before requesting another static file. In Tomcat 7, this cache filtering functionality has been added to Tomcat itself, so all we have to do is reference the right classes in the web application's web.xml file. Note regarding JRS 6.x, Cache Filter is built directly in JRS in recent versions, see http://community.jaspersoft.com/wiki/setting-cache-filter-tomcat-or-jboss-static-files#Cache_Control_filter_in_6.x ProcessShutdown the Tomcat serverWe first need to shutdown Tomcat before making these modifications. Tomcat will not take these modifications into account until the server restarts. Modify the web application's web.xml fileYou'll need to add these snippets to the {TOMCAT_HOME}/webapps/jasperserver-pro/WEB-INF/web.xml, which enable the ExpiresFilter. The filter mapping makes sure that every request gets evaluated as a potential candidate for the cache filter. The class org.apache.catalina.filters.ExpiresFilter is in the catalina.jar file under {TOMCAT_HOME}/lib. <filter> <filter-name>ExpiresFilter</filter-name> <filter-class>org.apache.catalina.filters.ExpiresFilter</filter-class> <init-param> <param-name>ExpiresByType image</param-name> <param-value>access plus 2 weeks</param-value> </init-param> <init-param> <param-name>ExpiresByType text/css</param-name> <param-value>access plus 2 weeks</param-value> </init-param> <init-param> <param-name>ExpiresByType application/javascript</param-name> <param-value>access plus 2 weeks</param-value> </init-param></filter><filter-mapping> <filter-name>ExpiresFilter</filter-name> <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern> <dispatcher>REQUEST</dispatcher></filter-mapping>[/code]Modify the context.xml fileNext, we need to modify the application's context.xml file to allow proxy caching. To do this, we simply add the following snippet below the declaration, where we add the BasicAuthenticator Valve. Also note that at the Context level, the cachingAllowed attribute is set to true. <context cachingallowed="true" crosscontext="true" debug="5" path="/jasperserver-pro" reloadable="false"> <valve classname="org.apache.catalina.authenticator.BasicAuthenticator" disableproxycaching="false" securepageswithpragma="true"> . . . </valve></context>[/code]Restart Tomcat and testOnce you've restarted Tomcat, you can start testing that the headers are getting their expiration headers properly set. You can use Firebug to inspect the headers, or you can use Chrome's integrated developer tools. References:Apache documentation on the ExpiresFilter - http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/config/filter.html#Expires_FilterApache documentation on the BasicAuthenticator Valve - http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/config/valve.html#Basic_Authenticator_ValveSetting up a cache filter in Tomcat 6 - setting up a cache filter in Tomcat 6.

This is a list of tips and tricks that we're compiling that people have used successfully in their JasperReports® Server projects. Some entries in this list are links to other pages rather than having the entire text in-line. Eventually, these entries will wind up on their own page as well. Please add any other bits that you've used as an in-line entry or as a link to a separate page. Measure and Test Measure Ad Hoc Performance Do Performance Testing with JMeter Test DB Queries with DBTester Domain Security Domain security without security file Ad Hoc Set query limits on the "Ad Hoc Options" page Modify the Ad Hoc caching values if your data does not update constantly Tomcat Compress HTTP responses at the Tomcat level Increase the maximum thread count at the Tomcat level Set up a cache filter for Tomcat or JBoss Move static content to a web server. Some customers have reported up to 20% improvement in response time. Disable automatic deployment on production servers using Tomcat Data Source Connections Prefer JNDI datasources to JDBC datasources One potential bottleneck is a datasource that doesn't offer a connection pool. This is why we recommend using JNDI, which allows you to configure an entire connection pool that resides within the container. A JNDI data source calls the JNDI (Java Naming and Directory Interface) service of the application server to locate a database connection. The application server manages the connections to the database and shares them between all applications that it hosts. The configuration of the application server determines the number of connections that are shared. Note that the application server connects to the database using JDBC, meaning that JNDI data sources return results in the same format as JDBC data sources. Documentation In Tomcat, tuning the JNDI datasource involves modifying the values for the maxIdle and maxActive attributes. For more information, see How to tune the number of connections in the server database pool, which gives examples of configuring a connection pool. JasperReports Server Administration Guide (Other versions) Data Sources Troubleshooting Working with Data Sources JNDI Services on Apache Tomcat ( additional info in Wiki Article: How to Add a New JNDI Connection in Tomcat ) JNDI Services on JBoss JNDI Services on WebLogic Database Index columns in the database to speed up domain-based reports Set the fetch size in the jasperreports.properties file to modify the number of rows to fetch Variations in database timings for different utilities JasperReports Configuration Items Memory Management with JasperReports and JasperReports Server Virtualizers in JasperReports Modify Virtualizer Settings for Very Large Reports Modify the jasperreports.properties file to disable multi-line data processing Auditing config Check and veriify that jprint size calculations are turned off. This incurs a major performance hit to both memory and cpu. The file is located at /WEB-INF/js.config.properties. #enable recording of print object memory size audit.sizeof.enabled=false File system issues Although it doesn't happen very often, sometimes the filesystem on which JasperReports Server is running needs some tuning. Some common issues that may occur are: File System Full On Linux-based systems, you can check the filesystem size and its usage by using the command below, which gives you a report on the filesystem usage. $ df -k Swap Space If there is no swap space defined for a system, or if there's not enough, then the system will often seem to using all its memory even if the CPU % usage is low. This is because it's unable to idle processes by using swap space (essentially writing their state to disk, for quick retrieval when another process needs it). Swap space gets defined as a fraction of available RAM; some people prefer 50% of RAM for large systems, others 200% of RAM. Remember that this is disk space and not additional RAM. You can use this command on Linux to check the swap space: $ free Continue with Performance Topics: Performance Troubleshooting Tools Resources Search Knowledge Base → Keyword: "performance" Search Knowledge Base → Keyword: "performance" in "How-To" & "Best Practices"