IBM WebSphere V5.0 Security - CGISecurity

9.3 Performance considerationsFrom a performance point of view, there are few things to consider whendesigning a secure solution.The authorization process brings an additional load to the application server. In adistributed environment, the authorization server should be put onto a separatemachine in order to offload application processing. The following three settingscan help to fine-tune the security related configurations to enhance performance.► Security Cache TimeoutThis is set to indicate how long WebSphere should cache information relatedto permission and security credentials. When the cache timeout expires, allcached information becomes invalid. Subsequent requests for the informationresult in a database lookup. Sometimes, acquiring the information requiresinvoking an LDAP-bind or native authentication, both of which are relativelycostly operations in terms of performance.► HTTP Session timeoutThis parameter specifies how long a session will be considered active when itis unused. After the timeout, the session expires and another session objectwill need to be created. With high volume Web sites, this may influence theperformance of the server.► Registry and database performanceDatabases and registries that WebSphere Application Server is using havean influence on WebSphere Application Server performance. This isespecially true in distributed environments when the Authorization processuses an LDAP server; you have to consider tuning the LDAP database andthe LDAP server for performance before starting to tune WebSphere.9.4 Authentication summaryThe following diagram is a summary of the authentication mechanisms for thedifferent kind of clients (the term clients here is used in the most general way).230 IBM WebSphere V5.0 Security Handbook