Mark Thomas
Senior Software Engineer, SpringSource.
Mark Thomas is a Senior Software Engineer with SpringSource. At SpringSource Mark leads the integration of Tomcat with tc Server and has also had a hand in the development and integration of the additional serviceability functionality.
Mark has been using and developing Apache Tomcat for more than five years. He became involved in the development of Tomcat when he needed better control over the SSL configuration than was available at the time. After fixing that first bug, he started working his way through the remaining Tomcat bugs and is still going. Along the way, Mark became a Tomcat committer and PMC member, volunteered to be the Tomcat 4 release manager, created the Tomcat security pages, became a member of the ASF, joined the Apache Security Committee and is an Apache Commons PMC member where he contributes to Commons Pool, DBCP and Daemon. He also helps maintain the ASF's Bugzilla instances.
Mark has a MEng in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom.
Presentations
Diagnosing web application OutOfMemoryErrors
This session will start with an overview of the JVM memory structure and explain some common misconceptions regarding the standard memory related JVM configuration options. Each of the typical OufOfMemoryError failures will be demonstrated and the symptoms explained. Attenedees will also learn how to diagnose these failures. To complete the session, the key tc Server configuration parameters that impact on memory usage will be discussed.
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Securing Apache Tomcat for your Environment
A default Apache Tomcat installation is secure but each installation environment is different and may have additional security requirements. This presentation will examine the security configuration options available in Apache Tomcat, when to use them (and when not to use them) and the threats they might help mitigate. The rationale behind having resource passwords (eg for database access) in clear text in server.xml will also be discussed.
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Using tc Server behind an httpd reverse proxy
The range of choices for httpd module and tc Server connector means that there are many ways to configure tc Server as a reverse proxy with httpd. This presentation will explain the pros and cons of each of the options and provide attendees with information on the key configuration parameters for each. Common pitfalls will be discussed and suggestions provided for configuration options to avoid them.
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Clustering and load-balancing with tc Server and httpd
When an application reaches production, the requirements for scalability and/or availability usually mean that some form of load-balancing or clustering is employed. The process of setting up a cluser is complicated by the fact that a small configuration error can have a major impact such as every request resulting in an infinite re-direct, unexpected components appearing in URLs, loss of user sessions and so on. This session will take you through the process of setting up and testing a cluster of tc Servers, highlighting the common pitfalls and explaining how to diagnose cluster configuration issues when they occur.
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Introduction to Tomcat 7
Apache Tomcat is the mostly widely deployed application server in today's enterprise market. Developers, QA teams and IT managers all use Tomcat in a wide variety of deployments with incredible success. This session looks inside the popular Apache project to review some of the new features available with Apache Tomcat 7, including asynchronous request processing, memory leak protection, security improvements and simpler embedding.
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Upgrading to Tomcat 7
This session is aimed at users who are considering an upgrade to Tomcat 7 or who have already upgraded and want to make sure they are taking full advantage of the new features available in Tomcat 7. The session will briefly cover the new features provided by the updated specifications (Servlet 3.0, JSP 2.2 & EL 2.2) before spending the bulk of the session examining the new security, authentication, authorisation, resource management, reverse proxy, embedding, parallel deployment, stability and management features as well as covering the important changes in the configuration settings. The session will end with a look ahead to future plans, including Tomcat 8.
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