The document discusses performance tuning of an ERP system like Banner, which is known to be difficult due to systemic issues across platforms. It provides an overview of concepts to help IT teams identify and solve internal datacenter problems, such as monitoring database, network, servers, applications, and gathering metrics on hardware and software configurations. The presentation also covers specific factors that affect Banner/Oracle performance, including product mix, queries, hardware settings, network saturation, processes, and user desktop tools. Metrics and usage patterns are monitored to analyze bottlenecks and prioritize areas for tuning the application, database, and hardware.

1. Tennessee Board of Regents
IT Collaborative Effort
Performance Tuning a Banner ERP
datacenter
Where to start – the art and science
of detailing your environment

2. Tennessee Board of Regents
IT Collaborative Effort
Contacts:
Jeff Hinds
Greg Turmel

3. Tennessee Board of Regents
Database Collaborative
Abstract:
Performance tuning an ERP, or any large application system, is known
throughout the IT industry as an art form. Its earned that “term” due in
large part to the difficulty when encountering a systemic issue in isolating
the problem area, troubleshooting effectively, and then diagnosing a
solution correctly. A good analogy would be like skipping rocks across a
quiet lake. The resulting ripples across many cross-platform results in
potentially many more problems than the one you first set out to solve.
Join us and learn a few concepts that will help any IT team zero in and
solve some internal datacenter problems.
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4. Tennessee Board of Regents
Database Collaborative
Summary of Proactive administration:
Datacenter Monitoring abilities
e.g. Database, network, servers, u.p.s., cooling
Application Monitoring
e.g. GRID
Knowledge of the current product mix and its integration/configuration
e.g. INB, SSB, Banner db, Appworx, Luminis, Touchnet
Metrics gathering
e.g. Real-time/baseline knowledge of how the datacenter is
behaving
What app/workload/process/service(s) does each server support
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5. Tennessee Board of Regents
Database Collaborative
Details: Things that affect Banner ERP/Oracle performance
Product Mix
Hardware, patch levels, and configurations
OS level configurations
Network saturation
Current Processes
Application tuning
ODBC/JDBC queries
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6. Tennessee Board of Regents
Database Collaborative
Core Banner Application Support Components:
Solaris 9 or 10 OS Software
Compilers used
Oracle Database Software
Oracle Application Server Software
SGHE Banner Database Application
SGHE Banner Mid-Tier Application
Network backbone between systems
Firewall configurations
Change Management Process
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7. Tennessee Board of Regents
Database Collaborative
Recap – Things to consider:
3rd party applications that connect to Banner
Non-related installations on servers (e.g. File Shares, Web services)
Hardware considerations: (Drive config / SAN / ZFS / Zones / LDOM)
I/O – block size used (impact to data load ops and retrievals for reports)
User impact: (Pop-selections, Discoverer, Extended Query, ODBC)
Desktop tools:
Java
Popup blockers (yahoo, MS…)
Virus scanners
Spread sheet budgeting
Browsers
OS versions, etc…
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8. Tennessee Board of Regents
Database Collaborative
Users #2
Users #4
Users/Applications #2
Users/Applications #3
Users #5
Datacenter #1 Users/Applications #3
Users #3 Users #1
Legend
Trouble Spots/pinch points
User ‐ Applications
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9. Tennessee Board of Regents
Database Collaborative
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10. Tennessee Board of Regents
Database Collaborative
100
90
80
70
60
50
Idle: PRODDB
40 Idle: PRODINB
30 Idle: PRODSSB
20 Idle: DEVDB
Idle: DEVINB
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Idle: DEVSSB
0
Idle: PRODDB
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11. Tennessee Board of Regents
Database Collaborative
Idle:
PRODDB PRODINB PRODSSB
Thu Aug 6 18:00:00 70 96 99
Fri Aug 7 06:00:00 70 96 99
Fri Aug 7 12:00:01 70 96 99
Fri Aug 7 18:00:00 70 96 99
Sat Aug 8 06:00:00 70 96 99
Sat Aug 8 12:00:00 70 96 99
Sat Aug 8 18:00:00 70 96 99
Sun Aug 9 06:00:00 70 96 99
Sun Aug 9 12:00:00 70 96 99
Sun Aug 9 18:00:00 70 96 99
Mon Aug 10 06:00:00 70 96 99
Mon Aug 10 12:00:01 70 96 99
Mon Aug 10 18:00:00 70 96 99
Tue Aug 11 06:00:00 70 96 99
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12. Tennessee Board of Regents
Database Collaborative
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13. Tennessee Board of Regents
Database Collaborative
How do you adjust the systems:
Trying to adjust configuration settings
During a crisis can cause more issues
Live, on production? Or in a sandbox?
Bring change management into the picture?
Monitoring your systems: pinpointing bottlenecks
What interval is used? – It impacts the metrics
Selecting priorities
Obtain a baseline
Analyze the systems during peak times
Stress test during off-hours
Building / Designing performance case studies
Tuning Banner Application case
Tuning Oracle Database case
Tuning the Hardware case
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14. Tennessee Board of Regents
Database Collaborative
How do you adjust the systems:
Section / Isolate your tuning:
Knowing that most performance problems are the
result of system designs and not an isolated symptom.
Yes, a hard disk failure, network saturation, or ISP
outages do occur.
But a bigger impact is in:
How the application is designed
How SQL is used – queries / via source
How memory used in query and systems
How coding methods are developed
How data manipulation is handled
How data storage is designed
How the physical storage is designed
How the logical storage is designed
How the network infrastructure is designed
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15. Tennessee Board of Regents
Database Collaborative
Monitor network availability
Monitor website availability
Analyze usage patterns
Bandwidth utilization
Server disk usage
CPU utilization
Memory usage
NIC activity
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16. Tennessee Board of Regents
Database Collaborative
Summary: Database performance has a huge impact on your
applications, your users, and your organization.(Quest)
Ensure Database Quality
Performance
Availability
Boost the performance of your databases
Boost productivity of the people who manage them
Eliminate or minimize downtime
Improve response time
Optimize resource utilization
Simplify upgrades and migrations
Reduce database costs
Eliminate the risks
Virtual Infrastructure
a. Operational challenges
b. Support complexity - what needs to be known
c. Infrastructure evolution - from single dedicated to {?}
d. Potential cost savings and flexibility become limited without a
solid virtualization strategy{ies}.
e. Reduce costs and simplify on going management of the
entire virtual environment – from desktop to server to storage.
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17. Tennessee Board of Regents
Database Collaborative
Resources:
 https://wiki.gonzaga.edu/its/index.php/Programmer_Technical
 http://www.uaex.edu/srea/
 http://www.softconference.com/sungard/slist.asp?C=1697
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