Stored proc running 30% slower through Java versus running directly on database

Question

I'm using Java 1.6, JTDS 1.2.2 (also just tried 1.2.4 to no avail) and SQL Server 2005 to create a CallableStatement to run a stored procedure (with no parameters). I am seeing the Java wrapper running the same stored procedure 30% slower than using SQL Server Management Studio. I've run the MS SQL profiler and there is little difference in I/O between the two processes, so I don't think it's related to query plan caching.

The stored proc takes no arguments and returns no data. It uses a server-side cursor to calculate the values that are needed to populate a table.

I can't see how the calling a stored proc from Java should add a 30% overhead, surely it's just a pipe to the database that SQL is sent down and then the database executes it....Could the database be giving the Java app a different query plan??

I've posted to both the MSDN forums, and the sourceforge JTDS forums (topic: "stored proc slower in JTDS than direct in DB") I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions as to why this might be happening?

Thanks in advance,

-James

(N.B. Fear not, I will collate any answers I get in other forums together here once I find the solution)

Java code snippet:

sLogger.info("Preparing call...");
stmt = mCon.prepareCall("SP_WB200_POPULATE_TABLE_limited_rows");
sLogger.info("Call prepared.  Executing procedure...");
stmt.executeQuery();
sLogger.info("Procedure complete.");

I have run sql profiler, and found the following:

Java app : CPU: 466,514 Reads: 142,478,387 Writes: 284,078 Duration: 983,796

SSMS : CPU: 466,973 Reads: 142,440,401 Writes: 280,244 Duration: 769,851

(Both with DBCC DROPCLEANBUFFERS run prior to profiling, and both produce the correct number of rows)

So my conclusion is that they both execute the same reads and writes, it's just that the way they are doing it is different, what do you guys think?

It turns out that the query plans are significantly different for the different clients (the Java client is updating an index during an insert that isn't in the faster SQL client, also, the way it is executing joins is different (nested loops Vs. gather streams, nested loops Vs index scans, argh!)). Quite why this is, I don't know yet (I'll re-post when I do get to the bottom of it)

Epilogue

I couldn't get this to work properly. I tried homogenising the connection properties (arithabort, ansi_nulls etc) between the Java and Mgmt studio clients. It ended up the two different clients had very similar query/execution plans (but still with different actual plan_ids). I posted a summary of what I found to the MSDN SQL Server forums as I found differing performance not just between a JDBC client and management studio, but also between Microsoft's own command line client, SQLCMD, I also checked some more radical things like network traffic too, or wrapping the stored proc inside another stored proc, just for grins.

I have a feeling the problem lies somewhere in the way the cursor was being executed, and it was somehow giving rise to the Java process being suspended, but why a different client should give rise to this different locking/waiting behaviour when nothing else is running and the same execution plan is in operation is a little beyond my skills (I'm no DBA!).

As a result, I have decided that 4 days is enough of anyone's time to waste on something like this, so I will grudgingly code around it (if I'm honest, the stored procedure needed re-coding to be more incremental instead of re-calculating all data each week anyway), and chalk this one down to experience. I'll leave the question open, big thanks to everyone who put their hat in the ring, it was all useful, and if anyone comes up with anything further, I'd love to hear some more options...and if anyone finds this post as a result of seeing this behaviour in their own environments, then hopefully there's some pointers here that you can try yourself, and hope fully see further than we did.

I'm ready for my weekend now!

-James

Answer 1

I recall having a similar issue a while ago, because JTDS was silently converting a string parameter to Unicode or something similar. As a result of that conversion, SQL Server was unable to use the index which is was using when we ran the stored proc from SSMS.

HIH