In this post, we would like to share our real-world experience in optimizing a Java application that was controlling the robots in a warehouse. This application would give instructions to the robots in the warehouse on what actions to perform. Based on those instructions, robots carry out their job in the warehouse. Occasionally, this application was slowing down and not giving instructions to the robots. If robots didn't receive instructions from the application, they would start to make autonomous decisions causing degenerated behavior in them, which in turn was affecting the delivery and shipments in the warehouse.
Long Garbage Collection Pause
The best way to start troubleshooting the Java application’s performance is to study its Garbage Collection performance. This is even more true when the application suffers from a slowdown. We took this application’s Garbage Collection log file and uploaded it to the GCeasy tool. (Note: Garbage Collection log contains vital statistics that are not reported by most monitoring tools, and they add almost no overhead to your application. Thus, it’s a best practice to enable the Garbage Collection log on all your production instances). The tool analyzed the Garbage Collection log and instantly generated this insightful GC log analysis report.