Some common mistakes

Sending the right files
I spent a frustrating day yesterday reading log files from a server that I was told had stopped running (i.e. the process was gone). I spent a long time reading the logs looking for an indication of a problem and couldn't find one. On examining the IP addresses in the logs it was clear they had sent me the logs from the wrong server. Sysadmins, make sure you send the right log files. Once I had the right log files I had the answer within the hour and a fix to go forward with.

Verbose GC
Too many people run with verbose GC turned off. Unfortunately the word verbose is over loaded and in this case verbose does not mean verbose in the Unix sense. Verbose GC is actually not that verbose and has a heck of a lot of great information in there. Run with the ST_VERIFY option if you are on pre-Java5 JVMs (i.e. earlier than WAS v6.1)

Stay current with maintenance
Time and time again I go in to debug a problem and what do I find? The problem is "known" and a fix has been available for some time. Just because things are working today doesn't mean that they won't break in the future. Yeah, I also understand the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality and application servers are one place I don't like to play that card. Run the maintenance through all your test environments (including your performance test environment... you do have one, right?) and things should be okay in production. But don't expect to run on a 5 year old JVM and not run into problems one day...

I'm sure I'll think of more of my pet peeves so I'll add them later. In the meantime, if you're bored and need something to read see my paper on large topologies.

HTTP tuning

I often have to modify the performance of the HTTP side of the conversation and here is a link to a decent basics:

Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site

I also like the fact they used IBM's Page Detailer http://alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/pagedetailer which is an awesome application my colleague performance whiz Phil Theiller showed me. It is really awesome for getting a good visual feel for the HTTP side of things.