Performance issue using Javas Object streams with Sockets

Question

I'm trying to do local IPC using Sockets and Object streams in Java however I'm seeing poor performance.

I am testing the ping time of sending an object via an ObjectOutputStream to receiving a reply via an ObjectInputStream over a Socket.

Here's the Requestor:

public SocketTest(){

    int iterations = 100;
    try {
        Socket socket = new Socket("localhost", 1212);

        ObjectInputStream objectInputStream = new ObjectInputStream(socket.getInputStream()); 
        ObjectOutputStream objectOutputStream = new ObjectOutputStream(socket.getOutputStream()); 

        double start = System.currentTimeMillis();
        for (int i = 0; i < iterations; ++i) {

            Request request = new Request();
            objectOutputStream.writeObject(request);

            Response response = (Response)objectInputStream.readObject();
        }
        double finish = System.currentTimeMillis();
        System.out.println("Per ping: " + (finish - start) / iterations );

    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

Here's the responder:

public ServerSocketTest(){

    try {

        ServerSocket serverSocket = new ServerSocket(1212);
        Socket socket = serverSocket.accept();

        ObjectOutputStream objectOutputStream = new ObjectOutputStream(socket.getOutputStream());
        ObjectInputStream objectInputStream = new ObjectInputStream(socket.getInputStream());

        Request request = (Request)objectInputStream.readObject();
        while (request != null) {

            Response response = new Response();
            objectOutputStream.writeObject(response);
            request = (Request)objectInputStream.readObject();
        }
    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

The result I'm getting is:

Per ping: 80.35

80 msec is far to slow for local traffic.

Request and Response classes are very small and their serialisation is fast.

I have tried naively adding:

socket.setKeepAlive(true);  
socket.setTcpNoDelay(true);

with little effect.

performing a ping localhost:

64 bytes from localhost.localdomain (127.0.0.1): icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.035 ms  
64 bytes from localhost.localdomain (127.0.0.1): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.037 ms  
64 bytes from localhost.localdomain (127.0.0.1): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.049 ms  
64 bytes from localhost.localdomain (127.0.0.1): icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.039 ms  
64 bytes from localhost.localdomain (127.0.0.1): icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.056 ms  

is also fast.

Java version 1.6.0_05l Running on RedHat 2.4

Answer 1

Have you tried embedding both reques ts and responses in BufferedInputStream/BufferedOutputStream ? It should widely improve performances.

Answer 2

So construct the BufferedOutputStream & flush it before constructing the BufferedInputStream. To avoid hanging.

http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=4788782

it says as per documentation

If you modify the test case such that both the AServer and AClient construct the ObjectOutputStream before the ObjectInputStream, the test does not block. This is the expected behaviour given the following documentation:

ObjectOutputStream constructor:
Creates an ObjectOutputStream that writes to the specified
OutputStream. This constructor writes the serialization stream header to the underlying stream; callers may wish to flush the stream immediately to ensure that constructors for receiving
ObjectInputStreams will not block when reading the header.

ObjectInputStream constructor:
Creates an ObjectInputStream that reads from the specified
InputStream. A serialization stream header is read from the stream and verified. This constructor will block until the corresponding
ObjectOutputStream has written and flushed the header.

Answer 3

In addition to using Buffered streams and calling flush() before every read, you should also create the ObjectOutputStream first at both ends. Also, testing for readObject() returning null is pointless unless you're planning to call writeObject(null). The test for EOS with readObject() is catch (EOFException exc).

Answer 4

I still would have thought it would be faster than that. Is there anything else I can do to improve this?

This seems like something of a micro-benchmark. They're always hard to get right, but I think if you start by sending say 2000 messages before starting your latency measurements.

Also, see this detailed answer on how to do micro-benchmarks right.

Answer 5

I would expect that you have to call objectOutputStream.flush() on both sides to ensure that the data is immediately sent to the network. Otherwise, the TCP stack may wait a while for more data to fill a partial IP packet.