6.2.4 Generational Concurrent GC policy

The Generational Concurrent GC policy is designed to provide fast collection for short-lived objects. Use this policy when the application has high object allocation and death rates. This policy is most likely the best policy to choose for WebSphere applications because it produces a smaller footprint and reduces fragmentation of the heap. However, it is possible that this policy may degrade overall performance a small amount, but with the reduced pause times this may still be a desirable choice.

To set the GC policy to use Generational Concurrent, enter -Xgcpolicy:gencon into the Generic JVM arguments field in the Java Virtual Machine Process Definition page in the WebSphere Application Server administration console.

Note: Manual tuning is required when using Generational Concurrent policy.

Because manual tuning of the Generational Concurrent policy is required, a brief description of it is provided in Tuning the Generational Concurrent GC policy.