How to Handle Java Security Manager Overheads in ServiceNow

Is your ServiceNow MID Server slow and having issues? 🤔 The problem might be Java Security Manager overheads. But don’t worry! In this article, we’ll show you how to find and fix these problems. Learn easy ways to make your ServiceNow integrations faster and more reliable. Ready to start? Let’s go!

How Java Security Manager Overheads Impact Your ServiceNow MID Server

Slow Performance 

Java Security Manager checks can slow down your MID Server. The JVM spends extra time verifying permissions, causing delays.

Freezes and Timeouts 

Security verifications can lead to temporary freezes in your application. On a ServiceNow MID server, this may result in timeouts and missed requests, impacting reliability.

Increased Wait Time 

With security overheads, your application could take longer to respond, negatively affecting user experience and delaying critical tasks.

High Resource Consumption

Running security checks demands more CPU and memory, making the JVM work harder and putting extra strain on the system.

Challenging to Diagnose

Security overhead issues can be tricky to spot and resolve without detailed logs and thorough analysis.

Scalability Problems 

Inefficient security management can make it tougher for your application to handle increased requests or larger data volumes effectively.

Addressing Java Security Manager Overheads in ServiceNow MID Server

The SecurityManagerSimulation program simulates Java Security Manager overheads by performing repetitive, resource-intensive tasks with a modern approach to mimic permission checks. It creates bottlenecks through CPU-intensive computations, continuous memory allocations, and frequent file I/O operations, reflecting scenarios of high system load. Using a while (true) loop, the program ensures extended runtime, allowing resource consumption and processing overhead to accumulate. Periodic memory clearing and manual garbage collection simulate resource management patterns in environments like ServiceNow MID Server. This approach highlights the impact of resource bottlenecks and modern permission checking mechanisms in ensuring system performance and stability.

public class SecurityManagerSimulation {

    // Simulated work with custom permission checker
    public static void workWithResourceUsage() {
        List<Object> memoryHog = new ArrayList<>();
        int iteration = 0;

        while (true) { // Keep the program running
            try {
                iteration++;

                // CPU-intensive task
                performCpuIntensiveTask();

                // Memory-intensive task
                memoryHog.add(new int[10_000]);

                // I/O-intensive task
                performIoIntensiveTask(iteration);

                // Log progress to the console
                if (iteration % 100 == 0) {
                    System.out.println("Iteration: " + iteration + ", Memory hog size: " + memoryHog.size());
                }

                // Simulate periodic memory cleanup
                if (iteration % 500 == 0) {
                    memoryHog.clear(); // Clear some memory to simulate usage patterns
                    System.gc();       // Request garbage collection
                }

                // Sleep briefly to avoid overwhelming the system
                Thread.sleep(100);
            } catch (OutOfMemoryError e) {
                System.err.println("OutOfMemoryError encountered. Stopping.");
                break;
            } catch (Exception e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
    }

    // CPU-intensive task
    public static void performCpuIntensiveTask() {
        long sum = 0;
        for (long i = 0; i < 1_000_000; i++) {
            sum += i * Math.random();
        }
    }

    // I/O-intensive task
    public static void performIoIntensiveTask(int iteration) {
        File file = new File("test_output.txt");
        try (BufferedWriter writer = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(file, true))) {
            writer.write("Iteration: " + iteration + " - Simulating I/O bottleneck\n");
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Starting long-running resource bottleneck simulation...");
        workWithResourceUsage();
        System.out.println("Program terminated.");
    }
}

The traditional Java Security Manager has been deprecated in modern Java versions, making it less suitable for current and future applications. This deprecation encourages developers to adopt more flexible and lightweight mechanisms to handle permission checks and resource management. Our custom SecurityManagerSimulation leverages a modern approach to replicate the overheads without relying on the deprecated API, ensuring compatibility with newer JVMs. This method aligns with Java’s evolving ecosystem, avoiding complexities like additional JVM flags required to enable the old SecurityManager. By using this modern approach, we maintain forward compatibility and adapt to best practices in secure and efficient Java development.

Simulation Java Security Manager Overheads in ServiceNow MID server

Let’s run our application on the ServiceNow MID Server and see how Security Manager Overheads look. First, create a JAR file from the program using the command:

jar cf  SecurityManagerOverhead.jar SecurityManagerOverhead.class

Once a JAR file is created, let’s upload and run this program in the ServiceNow MID Server as documented in the MID Server setup guide. This guide provides a detailed walkthrough on how to run a custom Java application in the ServiceNow MID Server infrastructure. It walkthrough following steps:

1. Creating a ServiceNow application
2. Installing MID Server in AWS EC2 instance
3. Configuring MID Server
4. Installing Java application with in MID Server
5. Running Java application from MID server

We strongly encourage you to check out the guide if you are not sure on how to run custom Java applications in ServiceNow MID server infrastructure.

yCrash’s Java Security Manager Overheads in ServiceNow MID Server

The yCrash troubleshooting report highlights a memory usage issue where a single thread holds a significant portion of the heap in local variables, primarily in a java.lang.Object[]. This suggests inefficient memory allocation or retention, potentially exacerbated by repetitive permission checks or resource-heavy tasks. The heap usage overview (16.36 MB) and object counts provide insight into memory consumption trends under the simulated workloads. By analyzing such reports, we can identify bottlenecks caused by overheads in tasks like frequent permission validations in the context of a Security Manager. This helps in optimizing memory and thread management strategies for the ServiceNow MID Server, ensuring better performance and resource utilization under constrained environments. Leveraging these insights allows targeted improvements in how modern permission checks are implemented and managed.

The yCrash report identifies the largest objects in memory, with the main thread retaining 96.34% of the heap in a single instance of java.lang.Object[], pointing to inefficient memory allocation or retention patterns. This behavior simulates potential issues in a ServiceNow MID Server, where resource-intensive tasks and permission checks can lead to similar bottlenecks. Other objects, such as class loaders and system-level objects, have minimal heap impact, confirming that the memory bottleneck is localized to the main thread’s processing. For ServiceNow MID Servers, these insights are critical to optimizing memory usage, reducing thread-local memory accumulation, and improving task execution efficiency. Addressing these bottlenecks ensures better stability and performance, particularly when handling high workloads or enforcing modern security policies.

The yCrash troubleshooting report provides valuable insights into memory usage patterns, highlighting inefficiencies such as excessive heap retention by a single thread. This information helps identify bottlenecks caused by resource-intensive tasks and potential permission overheads, which are critical for understanding the impact of Java Security Manager in ServiceNow MID Server environments. By analyzing the report, we can target specific areas for optimization, such as reducing memory retention and improving resource management. These improvements directly address the challenges posed by security overheads, ensuring better performance and stability for the MID Server. Leveraging yCrash reports allows for data-driven strategies to handle overheads effectively in modern ServiceNow implementations. You can see the detailed report here.

Conclusion

yCrash helps diagnose performance issues, such as Security Manager overhead, by using machine learning algorithms to analyze thread and memory behavior. It identifies threads that consume excessive memory or experience performance bottlenecks, providing valuable insights into resource-heavy operations. In the case of ServiceNow’s MID server, yCrash can pinpoint the impact of Security Manager on memory usage and processing time, helping developers understand how system configurations affect performance. By generating detailed reports with stack traces and memory snapshots, yCrash allows for targeted optimization efforts. Ultimately, yCrash enhances troubleshooting and accelerates performance tuning by highlighting potential issues that could affect ServiceNow MID server efficiency. If you want to diagnose performance problems in your application using yCrash, you may register here.