A Roadmap for Improving Performance
Performance Tuning Methodology
Posted on 1/12/2007 (originally published in print on 8/1/2004)
by Scott Baker
As a consultant I visited many client sites specifically to tune their PeopleSoft Applications. At first, I was surprised to see that these large companies had performance issues despite having DBAs who where very skilled in SQL tuning on staff. So why was there still a problem? It became clear to me that the problem had nothing to do with a lack of SQL tuning skill. I found that a repeatable process for resolving performance issues in a PeopleSoft environment was not present.
In this article, I will lay out a simple methodology that will help you eliminate performance problems in your PeopleSoft environment on an ongoing and consistent basis. This is not an article about SQL tuning. Many good articles and books have been written on this subject. This article is broken down into two sections. First, I will present performance tuning at the macro level, dealing with a single problem. I then will expand to the Enterprise level with a process to manage the entire tuning effort.
When approaching a performance problem, I like to follow several distinct steps. They are: problem identification, tuning the SQL and implementing the solution.
Identifying the Problem
The first step to addressing a problem is getting face to face with the user to talk about the problem. Find out what issue is causing them the most pain. This conversation is your very first step in building a strong relationship with your customer. It is also important to differentiate between slow vs. broken processes. We cannot "tune" a broken process.
Gather metrics on the issue such as run frequency, duration, and impact to the business. These metrics will be very important after you have fixed the problem. Work in a non-production environment that is of equal size as Production, such as QA. Run the job in this environment, capturing timings. If it is an online function, sit with a user and time it several times with a stopwatch. Next, arrange for a test with the user to capture a trace file.
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