Server Performance Optimization – Tips & Identifying Common Issues

We’ve all been frustrated by websites and apps that lag or take a while to load. What’s extra frustrating is that it can be difficult to tell what exactly is causing the slowdown. It could be a network problem, a sluggish database, or a server that is not performing well.

Server issues are likely something we all have experienced at some point. This article explores the topic of server performance, identifies common server difficulties, and offers tips for overcoming them and improving server performance.

What is Server Performance?

Server performance refers to how well a server is handling its workload and delivering a user experience that’s either expected or contractually guaranteed. Server performance comprises factors like speed, response time, reliability, and efficiency. The specific metrics for server performance include measures of CPU usage, memory usage, disk inputs/outputs (I/O), and network bandwidth.

It’s always worth asking, “Why do we care about server performance?” It could be a matter of ensuring the end-user customer experience is sufficient. Or the performance of a server might be relevant to financial stakeholders, who might be concerned about data center efficiency or return on investment (ROI) on server assets.

Server performance is critical to an organization’s bottom line. A poor performance, perhaps even downtime, could cause a company to lose millions in revenue. Think back to British Airways in 2017, when physically damaged servers led to revenue losses of £80million (via The Independent).

5 Indicators of Server Performance Issues

Below are five indicators of server performance issues. These signs help you identify when a server in your IT infrastructure is performing below the required level.

1. Maximized Server Capacity

A server is a computer with a finite capacity for processing requests for its functionality.  If the volume of requests outstrips the server’s ability to respond (e.g., more simultaneous requests per second than it can handle) the server may become unresponsive or fail to meet Service Level Agreements (SLAs). It might even shut down altogether and require a restart.

2. Slower Server Response Times

A server’s speed of response is an important indicator of performance. Response time is measured as the complete time elapsed between a request for a server process(e.g., retrieving data from a database) and the end user’s receipt of a response.

If a slower response speed is identified, this is a key indicator that a server is underperforming.

3. Reduced Server Reliability

Uptime (i.e., the percentage of time that a server is available to do its job) is a key metric of performance. Simply, the less uptime of a server, or cluster of servers, the more likely there is a performance issue.

Uptime is tracked as a percentage. For instance, a server with 99% uptime is offline 88 hours per year, operating for 8,672 of a year’s 8760 total hours. Most infrastructure managers expect better, aiming for at least 99.9% uptime, which means only 8.76 hours of downtime per year.

IT managers must be aware of common causes of server hardware failure, to ensure maximized uptime. This can also go beyond hardware issues and include software vulnerabilities or security breaches, which can be a major cause of downtime.

4. Less Efficiency and Utilization of Hardware

Server efficiency indicates performance by showing how effectively the server operates within its normal thresholds and utilizes resources. For example, it clocks the percentage of central processing unit (CPU) capacity that’s used by a workload, as well as how much of the device’s random-access memory (RAM) is consumed.

If CPU and RAM usage are low it suggests the server is underutilized. This may not be a bad thing. Underutilization may simply be a reflection of a workload that is still growing. However, underutilization is usually a sign of problems.

For example, if you have two servers, and one is overloaded and the other is handling a trickle of requests, that imbalance in utilization will usually lead to slow response times and therefore, under-performance. It also signifies a waste of a server asset.

5. Server Bandwidth at Capacity

Network bandwidth can be a factor that affects server performance optimization​. For example, if a server hosts multiple virtual machines (VMs) that share a single port, the volume of I/O requests can create a network bottleneck, slowing down the server’s ability to process those requests.

This issue can also exist with connections between servers and storage.

8 Tips on How to Improve Server Performance​

What does it take to increase server performance? Here are eight tips to reach your performance server goals. If you incorporate these processes into your management activities, there is a greater chance you will run optimized servers.

1. Monitor Server Performance

It is imperative to monitor server performance. Without monitoring, it’s difficult to know which server equipment is underperforming.

A combination of data center hardware performance monitoring and data center hardware monitoring can inform you of how well your server equipment is performing from a health and performance perspective.

The monitoring process might reveal servers are performing optimally.  However, monitoring will also highlight servers that are not performing well. From here, IT teams can begin investigating underperforming assets and plan to improve their performance.

Purpose-built server management and monitoring tools can also perform monitoring tasks on an automated basis, which is valuable in saving time and resources.

2. Ensure the Server Aligns with its Workload

Slow server performance​ may not be the result of any particular functional problem like CPU overutilization or an overloaded network connection. The issue could be a simple mismatch between the server and its workload.

Different workloads exert different demands on a server’s resources. For example, some workloads, such as scientific calculations and data analytics, are big strains on CPU resources. Others, like video streaming, don’t affect the CPU as much.

Here are some examples of how different activities’ workload impacts server requirements:

• Web hosting puts demands on network bandwidth, but the workload is well-served by a general-purpose server.
• Database management requires high RAM capacity and fast storage (IOPS), so a memory-storage optimized server will perform best for this workload.
• AI/machine learning requires high-performing graphical processing units (GPUs) and high memory bandwidth.
• E-commerce does best with a server that can provide fast page loads and memory that can handle spikes in traffic.

3. Upgrade Hardware if Necessary

One proven way to improve the performance of a server is to replace outdated hardware. Outdated hardware can form a performance bottleneck, so it’s useful to know how long servers typically last.

Replacing the entire server may not be necessary. Upgrading CPUs, adding RAM, and storage can make a difference in terms of performance. Moving from spinning disks (HDDs) to solid-state storage (SSDs) can improve server performance.

Similarly, a high-speed Network Interface Card (NIC) can boost data transfer rates, which leads to better performance, especially for data-intensive workloads.

4. Check your Server Configuration and Software Version

Server optimization often flows from server configuration. Factors that matter include the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), which is the modern version of the traditional BIOS firmware. You can optimize UEFI settings for performance. The same is true for the operating system (OS), where you can tune it for a given workload.

Additionally, running the most up-to-date software can improve performance, as older versions may not be suitable for more modern hardware and recent OS editions. This is where a managed patch management provider can help, to install the latest software version.

5. Utilize Virtualization

Server virtualization, the running of multiple virtual servers on a single physical device, is far from a new practice. However, even though it’s familiar, virtualization can still provide a way to improve performance.

Virtualization balances resource utilization with speed and ensures the right number of virtual machines are running on a single box with optimized loads. This produces the best server performance outcomes.

6. Consolidate Servers

If you have underutilized servers, it usually makes sense to consolidate them.

This might mean retiring a physical device to run its workload as a virtual server on another box that has spare capacity to improve server utilization.

7. Automate Server Performance Management

Automating IT infrastructure processes is often recommended when it comes to data center management. And it is possible to automate some of the adjustments needed to improve server performance in real time. For example, a data center infrastructure management (DCIM) solution might be able to detect that a server’s CPU is overloaded and “running hot,” which impedes strong performance.

The DCIM solution can automatically route traffic elsewhere to take the pressure off that server, improving performance in the process.

8. Use Third-Party Maintenance

Third-party data center maintenance services can handle some of the more complex and labor-intensive challenges involved in improving server performance.

Certain tasks, such as upgrading GPUs, are better performed by experienced personnel employed by a third party, rather than in-house staff, who may be too busy with day-to-day infrastructure management.

Data center hardware maintenance providers also offer the added benefit of ongoing device maintenance and support. If there is a performance issue, or if the hardware requires break-fix support, then the maintenance provider can repair the hardware promptly, depending on their SLA.

9. Balance Server Workloads

The workload placed on a server can strain its performance. Load balancing helps avoid situations where a machine is inundated with requests that cause it to slow down or crash.

A load balancer can help here, distributing traffic and implementing autoscaling, which adjusts compute resources dynamically based on workload volumes.

Achieve Server Optimization with Park Place Technologies

Server performance can be improved in countless ways, but where should you start? Park Place Technologies has a wealth of experience in an array of areas that boost server hardware performance, along with your entire IT infrastructure. Here’s how we can help:

• Server hardware support ensures your server equipment remains up and running. No matter if you have IBM, Dell EMC, or Lenovo in your environment, we have you covered.
• Our server management services, as part of our infrastructure managed services offering, provides monitoring into server incidents, software patch management, and remediation.
• Speaking of monitoring, Park Place Technologies offers hardware health monitoring, hardware performance monitoring, as well as IT infrastructure monitoring. We ensure that no matter what tier of server monitoring you require, we have you covered from discovery to incident management.

Contact Park Place to learn more.