Understanding Performance Issues

in a PeopleSoft Environment

written by
Sunil G. Shenoy
Quest Software, Inc.

White Paper
© Copyright Quest® Software, Inc. 2006. All rights reserved.

This guide contains proprietary information, which is protected by copyright. The software
described in this guide is furnished under a software license or nondisclosure agreement. This
software may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of the applicable
agreement. No part of this guide may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording for any purpose other
than the purchaser's personal use without the written permission of Quest Software, Inc.

DISCLAIMER

The information in this document is provided in connection with Quest products. No license,
express or implied, by estoppel or otherwise, to any intellectual property right is granted by
this document or in connection with the sale of Quest products. EXCEPT AS SET FORTH IN
QUEST'S TERMS AND CONDITIONS AS SPECIFIED IN THE LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR THIS
PRODUCT, QUEST ASSUMES NO LIABILITY WHATSOEVER AND DISCLAIMS ANY EXPRESS,
IMPLIED OR STATUTORY WARRANTY RELATING TO ITS PRODUCTS INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL QUEST BE LIABLE FOR ANY
DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE, SPECIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES
(INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, BUSINESS
INTERRUPTION OR LOSS OF INFORMATION) ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO
USE THIS DOCUMENT, EVEN IF QUEST HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGES. Quest makes no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or
completeness of the contents of this document and reserves the right to make changes to
specifications and product descriptions at any time without notice. Quest does not make any
commitment to update the information contained in this document.

TRADEMARKS

All trademarks and registered trademarks used in this guide are property of their respective
owners.

World Headquarters
5 Polaris Way
Aliso Viejo, CA 92656
www.quest.com
e-mail: info@quest.com

Please refer to our Web site for regional and international office information.

Updated—June 2004

WPA_UnderstandPrfIssInPSEnvr_091406_NH
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................1
PEOPLESOFT 8.X ARCHITECTURE ................................................................2
MONITORING A PEOPLESOFT 8.X ENVIRONMENT FOR
OPTIMAL PERFORMANCE.............................................................................4
AVAILABILITY AND PERFORMANCE MONITORING ...................................................... 5
PERFORMANCE FACTORS FOR DIFFERENT PEOPLESOFT COMPONENTS .............................. 6
COMMON PAIN POINTS AND PERFORMANCE ISSUES ENCOUNTERED IN
A PEOPLESOFT ENVIRONMENT....................................................................9
ADMINISTRATORS STRUGGLE TO BE CONVERSANT WITH
THE VARIOUS TECHNOLOGIES THAT COMPRISE A PEOPLESOFT INFRASTRUCTURE ................ 9
PEOPLESOFT APPLICATION USERS ENCOUNTER PROBLEMS LOGGING-IN OR
BECOME STALLED ON A PARTICULAR PAGE ........................................................... 10
PROCESS (BATCH) SCHEDULER JOBS CAN AFFECT THE ON-LINE PROCESSING OF
PEOPLESOFT TRANSACTIONS ............................................................................ 10
RUNAWAY/ORPHANED PROCESSES WITHIN THE APPLICATION SERVER AND THE DATABASE .... 11
IDENTIFICATION OF PEOPLESOFT APPLICATION SUPER USERS WITHIN THE
APPLICATION SERVER AND THE DATABASE ........................................................... 12
PERFORMANCE ISSUES RELATED TO PROCESS (BATCH) SCHEDULER JOBS AND PROCESSES ... 12
DETERMINING THE APPLICATION USERS AFFECTED BY POOR SYSTEM PERFORMANCE AND
THOSE WHO CAUSE POOR PERFORMANCE ............................................................ 13
DETERMINING WHICH GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATIONS HAVE PROBLEMS ACCESSING OR
PERFORMING PEOPLESOFT TRANSACTIONS .......................................................... 14
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................ 15
RELATED WHITE PAPERS................................................................................ 15
ABOUT THE AUTHOR ................................................................................. 16
ABOUT QUEST SOFTWARE, INC. ................................................................ 17
CONTACTING QUEST SOFTWARE ....................................................................... 17
CONTACTING QUEST SUPPORT ......................................................................... 17

i
 White Paper

INTRODUCTION
As leading organizations worldwide implement and extend PeopleSoft’s Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) applications to manage critical enterprise and eBusiness
functions to drive the business objectives of either increasing revenue or decreasing
IT costs, they also must deal with the complexities of managing those
environments in order to fully attain control of the investment they have made.
Managing an infrastructure—servers, processes, and communication networks—is
becoming increasingly complex.

As new technologies are developed to deliver information and services over the
web, management of these multi-tier applications increases in difficulty. For
example, PeopleSoft has moved from a relatively simple, database-centric, two-
tiered architecture, to a four-tiered, application server-driven application. Managing
the performance of modern ERP systems such as PeopleSoft requires continuous
collection of critical information from the application environment, combined with
an established process for the evaluation and utilization of this information.

The purpose of this white paper is to address the performance factors and metrics
that need to be monitored in a PeopleSoft environment. This paper also addresses
issues that are commonly encountered in a PeopleSoft environment, specifically
within the PeopleTools 8.x applications environment, which encompasses different
technologies within its infrastructure. For each issue, this paper presents a solution
that is offered by Quest and the corresponding benefit customers can attain by
using Quest’s Application Performance Management (APM) solution.

1
Understanding Performance Issues in a PeopleSoft Environment

PEOPLESOFT 8.X ARCHITECTURE

PeopleSoft 8.x is based on the PeopleSoft Internet Architecture (PIA) where the
client can be any internet device that uses standard Internet technologies such as
HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML), and
Extensible Markup Language (XML) to communicate with the PeopleSoft application.
This architecture provides a number of benefits like easy access from a browser
using a PeopleSoft URL, platform independence, low bandwidth access and low
maintenance/deployment for the application. The PIA substantially reduces the cost
involved in deploying the applications to a large end-user base because of the thin-
client user access (a web browser with no code on the client), as compared to a
conventional client-server architecture. The PeopleSoft 8.x environment typically
comprises of the Web Browser, the Web Server, the Application Server, the Process
Scheduler and the Database.

Figure 1 shows the PeopleSoft 8.1.x architecture.

Other PS8 Batch Server DB Server

Systems
External Web SQR
Content Cristal,
nVision COBOL

App
Process
Browser Web Server Scheduler
Engine

W Reporting Report
HTML D
Servlet Repository Distribution
& e Agent
JavaScript Page a
b Servlet t
App Server Remote
S Portal a Business
Servlet User Remote b Interlinks
e J T Auth. Call
XML Link r XML Link o U Component a
Processor
Requesters Servlet s
v l X User Interface
Generator e
e App Msg
PS Handler t E
Remote Gateway Portal
App Msg
r Servlet File Handler D Registry
Publishers Java Runtime Env. O Business
Interlink
Component Query
Workstation Interface External API Pub/Sub Remote
Clients App Msg
App Server Domain Subscribers
IDE

Figure 1: PeopleSoft 8.1.x architecture

2
 White Paper

The sequence of events that takes place in a PeopleSoft 8.x environment is as

follows:

1. The URL in the Web Browser address window invokes a PeopleSoft servlet
on the Web Server
2. Servlet running in the servlet engine interprets request and comes up with
the list of objects required to build the page
3. Request for all required objects sent to the application server in the form of
a Jolt Message
4. Tuxedo receives the Jolt Message and converts it into a service request
which it routes to the appropriate PeopleSoft server process
5. PeopleSoft server process converts service request into SQL statement(s)
6. SQL statements sent to the Database
7. Data requested is supplied by the Database
8. PeopleSoft process constructs HTML page out of object data
9. Tuxedo acknowledges receipt of data and closes connection with the
PeopleSoft process
10. Data forwarded by Tuxedo to requesting Java Servlet
11. Servlet forwards page requested by the browser
12. When all objects are in place, HTML page forwarded to the Web Services
13. Browser views the page

3
Understanding Performance Issues in a PeopleSoft Environment

MONITORING A PEOPLESOFT 8.X ENVIRONMENT

FOR OPTIMAL PERFORMANCE

The PeopleSoft 8.x environment comprises different components and different

technologies. Figure 2 shows a graphical representation of the sequence of activity (as
described in the previous section) including the different PeopleSoft Infrastructure
components:

Application Server

Services

Portal
RDBMS Server
Processor
RDBMS
User Interface Instance
Web Browser Web Server Generator
Application
Data Tables
Java App Messaging
T Processor
Servlets Application
U Meta data
Portal Bus Interlink
Servlet Processor S
HTTP/HTML
X Portal
JOLT Q SQL Registry
Presentation Component
Relay Servlet
E Processor
L
D
Integration Process
Relay Servlet O scheduler
Batch
Query Processes
Processor Process
Scheduler
Application Server
Engine

Security
Manager

Figure 2: PeopleTools 8

Essentially, monitoring a PeopleTools 8 environment includes analyzing and

monitoring the following different infrastructure components:

• Web Browser
• Web Server (HTTP Server, WebLogic, WebSphere)
• Application Server (Tuxedo)
• Process Scheduler
• Database
• Network
• External Applications interfacing with the PeopleSoft Applications

The ability of the PeopleSoft applications to run smoothly without any performance
issues depends on each of the above components. The detailed monitoring for each
of these infrastructure components will be discussed the sections that follow.

4
 White Paper

Availability and Performance Monitoring

Monitoring the different components to ensure optimal performance basically entails
monitoring for two key areas:

• Availability
• Performance

Availability Monitoring essentially means monitoring the status of the different

components and each of the processes that belong to that component. Some of the
key points to consider for Availability Monitoring are:

• Are all the Web Server(s) up and running?

• Are all the PeopleSoft Application Server(s) (Tuxedo) up and running?
• Are the PeopleSoft Web server(s) available from all geographic locations?
• Are the Process Scheduler(s) up and running?
• Is the Database Server and the Database Instance accessible to the
Application Server and Process Scheduler Processes?
• Is the network available between the different component servers?
• Are all the enabled Web Server servlets and Application Server processes
online or running?
• Are all the processes configured for the PeopleSoft Application Server and
Process Scheduler Domains up and running?
• Did the Web, Tuxedo processes or the Database encounter an error?

The availability factors will be the basic form of monitoring to ensure all the
transactions within the PeopleSoft Environment can be completed successfully.
Once the availability is determined and confirmed that all the components and its
processes are up and running, the next step is to monitor the performance factors
for each of the components. Performance Monitoring would generally include the
following:

• Are the Web/Application Servers or is the Database Server consuming too

many resources?
• Are there enough Application Server domains configured?
• Is there a need for additional Process Schedulers?
• Which Application Server (domain) is overloaded?
• Should a Load Balancer be used to improve performance?
• Is the Database experiencing optimal performance?
5
Understanding Performance Issues in a PeopleSoft Environment

• Are any of the PeopleSoft components causing a bottleneck?

• Is the network response time acceptable?
• Are any of the users experiencing an acceptable response time from all
geographic locations?
• What time of day has the most active users?

Performance Factors for Different PeopleSoft

Components
Due to it’s distributed nature, each of the PeopleSoft application components need
to be monitored and managed. The following metrics must be monitored for each of
the components that comprise the PeopleTools infrastructure:

Client (Browser):
• Ability to log on to the Web Server – the user should be able to connect to
the web server at all times.
• Response Times for Representative Transactions – provides a benchmark
of how long certain transactions take to complete.

Web Server:
• Basic Operating System Performance – monitoring the CPU and memory
consumption at the server level
• Garbage Collection – when garbage collection occurs, transactions can slow
down considerably. You must monitor the JVM Heap size and compare it to
the available memory on the Web server machine.
• Active and Total Threads within the Web Server – answers the questions of
how many users and connections are present at any given time and
provides an indication of whether there are enough threads available in the
Web Server to handle the peak number of users.
• Servlets Monitoring – monitoring the different PeopleSoft servlets including
the execution times and the classes and methods that belong to each to
identify any bottlenecks.

6
 White Paper

Application Server:
• Basic Operating System Performance – monitoring the CPU and memory
consumption at the server level.
• Tuxedo and Application Server Logs – ensures there are no errors
encountered either at start-up or during processing of requests.
• Application Server Domain Processes (like PSAPPSRV, PSQRYSRV, etc.) –
monitoring for availability as well as resource (CPU, memory) consumption.
• Listeners Monitoring (BBL, WSL, JSL) – monitoring of the different ports
these processes run on.
• Tuxedo Queuing – provides an indication on whether there are sufficient
numbers of instances of the Application Server processes. It also indicates
that user requests are waiting to be processed.
• Number of Client Connections and Requests – indicates the activity load on
a particular application server domain.

Process Scheduler:
• Basic Operating System Performance – monitoring the CPU and Memory
consumption at the server level.
• Tuxedo and Process Scheduler Logs – ensures no errors are encountered
either at start-up or during processing of requests.
• Process Scheduler Domain Processes (like PSPRCSRV, PSDSTSRV, etc.) –
monitoring for availability as well as resource (CPU, memory) consumption.
• Status of Process Scheduler within the Database – submitted jobs and
processes look at this status to begin processing; it is also important to
ensure that the scheduler is not in a hung status. (i.e. the Database status
shows it is running while, in reality, it is not.)
• Number of Jobs and Processes – indicates the activity load on a particular
Process Scheduler domain.
• Jobs and Processes Processing Time – determines long running and
problematic jobs and processes.

7
Understanding Performance Issues in a PeopleSoft Environment

Database:

PeopleSoft is a database-centric application, and thus relies on efficient database

operation to function properly. Monitoring the health of the Database is essential to
smooth PeopleSoft operations.

• Basic Operating System Performance – monitoring the CPU and memory

consumption at the server level.
• Database Background Processes – should be up and running at all times.
• Database Logs monitoring – identifies critical situations within the
Database.
• External and Internal Resource Usage –includes CPU, memory, disk, I/O,
locks, tablespaces, blocked processes, corrupted indexes, deadlocks, I/O
errors, inefficient caching, etc.
• PeopleSoft Application Users – identifies the PeopleSoft users that are in
the Database at any given time and whether they are running any
inefficient SQL.
• Runaway queries within the database – can lead to high resource
consumption both at the Database and Application Server level.

Other components:
• Network performance – availability and performance of the network
between the different components. Latency is an issue with PeopleSoft
Transactions
• Load balancing –load balancers working properly? (i.e. Are the loads on the
web server and the application server domains appropriately distributed.)

8
 White Paper

COMMON PAIN POINTS AND PERFORMANCE

ISSUES ENCOUNTERED IN A PEOPLESOFT
ENVIRONMENT
This section describes the various pain points that are generally encountered in a
PeopleSoft environment. It also describes how Quest addresses each of the pain
points and the benefits that can be attained.

Administrators Struggle to Be Conversant

with the Various Technologies that Comprise
a PeopleSoft Infrastructure
Since PeopleSoft uses a variety of different technologies within its infrastructure,
companies and PeopleSoft administrators have to be conversant with all of them to
ensure efficient operation of the PeopleSoft Applications. PeopleSoft 8.x supports
different HTTP servers like IIS, Apache, Weblogic, etc. The primary Web Servers
containing the presentation logic are Weblogic and WebSphere. The Application
Server layer that constitutes the PeopleSoft Application Server Domain and the
Process Scheduler Domain is run on Tuxedo. Finally, the back-end database options
include Oracle, DB2, SQLServer or Sybase. Add to this networks and load
balancers, and the whole infrastructure becomes very complex to understand and
manage. When performance degradation occurs, administrators are expected to
know what is causing the problem and to resolve it quickly. This activity becomes
very difficult if they don’t understand all the components and the technologies
completely.

How Quest can help: Using the APM Solution for PeopleSoft, all the components
of the PeopleSoft Infrastructure are mapped per PeopleSoft instance. Hence the
web server tier, the application tier, the database tier and the Process Scheduler
are all mapped in one place; when there is a performance problem as indicated by
a poorly performing transaction, the administrators can quickly identify where the
problem is and what within that component is contributing to the performance
degradation.

Benefit of the Quest Solution: The Quest Solution enables an administrator to

monitor different technologies (e.g. WebLogic, Tuxedo, different databases, Process
Scheduler, etc.) in one place without in-depth knowledge of each. The metrics
within the affected tier are identified so that the administrator can take appropriate
action to resolve the issue on hand.

9
Understanding Performance Issues in a PeopleSoft Environment

PeopleSoft Application Users Encounter

Problems Logging-in or Become Stalled on a
Particular Page
We have all heard about this: end-users contact administrators and indicate that
they are having a problem either accessing the PeopleSoft System itself, or are
waiting with a “processing” status on the page that they are on. The application
administration team does not know where to begin looking for the problem. How do
you determine whether this is a problem within the Web Server, the Application
Server or the Database? The only way to know this is to monitor all the components
at the same time and see which particular tier is contributing to the problem.

How Quest Can Help: The APM Solution for PeopleSoft provides an application
map that monitors all the infrastructure components that comprise the PeopleSoft
infrastructure. When the user contacts the PeopleSoft administrator to complain
about the performance or availability issues, the administrator can quickly
determine where the problem is occurring and work on resolving it. In fact, the
Quest APM solution has automated alerts that fire when certain critical metrics for
different tiers fail – providing a proactive means for the administrator to work on
the performance issue even before he or she gets contacted by the end-user.

Benefit of the Quest Solution: The Quest solution provides administrators the
ability to see where the problem is (which tier) in one place and shows which metric
within that tier is contributing to the problem. This significantly reduces the triage
resolution time and enables the team to focus on the tier and the problem on hand.

Process (Batch) Scheduler Jobs Can Affect the

On-Line Processing of PeopleSoft Transactions
The PeopleSoft Process Scheduler works in a “two-tier” mode with the PeopleSoft
database and polls the request table at frequent and regular intervals to process
jobs. At any given time a number of jobs and processes may be scheduled or will
be required to be processed. Since the Process Scheduler talks to the same
Database instance, it may need access to the same tables are accessed by some
on-line transactions. In addition, some poorly performing jobs and processes may
have an adverse effect on the whole Database, leading to overall performance
degradation in processing both the Process Scheduler jobs, as well as any ongoing
on-line transactions.

How Quest Can Help: Quest’s APM solution monitors the Application Server,
Process Scheduler and the Database in the same map as the PeopleSoft Instance
and views the performance of on-line transactions, as well the Process Scheduler
jobs and processes. When there is abnormal activity within the Process Scheduler
leading to degradation of on-line transactions performance, the cause of the
performance degradation is identified.

10
 White Paper

Benefit of the Quest Solution: The Quest solutions enables administrators to

identify and offload some of the reporting/batch processes to either off-peak hours
or to a back-up database. (Quest’s database replication solution, Shareplex, can be
used to create a two-way replicated back-up database if the associated database is
Oracle).

Runaway/Orphaned Processes within the

Application Server and the Database
When the Application Server domain boots up, it starts the configured number of
Application Server processes. The Application Server processes that talk to the
Database also have an equivalent number of shadow processes that are started on
the Database Server. In many instances, when either the Database or the
Application Server is brought down (either intentionally or non-intentionally, as in
case of a system failure), all the processes are not shut down cleanly. Also, for
other reasons, there may be “orphaned” processes either in the Application Server
or in the Database Server. In other words, there will not be a 1 to 1 relationship
between the instances of the Application Server processes within the Application
Server and the corresponding shadow processes in the Database Server. This can
cause unusually high consumption of system resources in the application server, in
the Database Server, or both. This may lead to overall performance degradation of
the PeopleSoft transactions activity.

How Quest Can Help: Quest’s APM solution for PeopleSoft monitor’s the
Application Server processes and the corresponding shadow processes in the
Database. The data is collected for both tiers at around the same time for
comparison. Administrators can see which processes are orphaned in either the
Database or in the Application Server.

Benefit of the Quest Solution: The Quest solution enables administrators to

identify and, if necessary, kill the runaway/orphaned process in the Application
Server or within the Database. This ensures optimal performance of not only the
Database and Application Sever components, but also improves the overall
PeopleSoft transactions activity.

11
Understanding Performance Issues in a PeopleSoft Environment

Identification of PeopleSoft Application Super

Users within the Application Server and the
Database
During periods of performance degradation, it may be desirable to know what kind
of PeopleSoft transaction activity is going on within the Application Server and the
Database Server. This information can help administrators understand whether a
few users, all users, or only select-few super users are causing the performance
problem. It is also important to know which tier is contributing to the problem.

How Quest Can Help: Quest’s APM Solution for PeopleSoft monitors the user
connections and requests within the application server domain. It monitors the
users that are running poor or long SQL within the PeopleSoft Database at any
given time. This information is presented in easy to understand tables and views
that administrators can use to troubleshoot any user-related problems.

Benefit of the Quest Solution: The Quest solutions enables administrators to

identify super users within the Application Server and Database in addition to any
relevant SQL activity within the Database. It also determines if those activities
contribute to the overall performance degradation.

Performance Issues Related to Process

(Batch) Scheduler Jobs and Processes
PeopleTools Process Scheduler is a centralized tool that enables application
developers, system administrators, and application users to manage PeopleSoft
batch processes. Using the PeopleSoft Internet Architecture (PIA), users can access
a list of processes through a Web browser to queue and run a process request. The
number of requests that are run may vary depending on the time of the day and
the day of the week. Since the requests will be processed against the same
PeopleSoft Database instance as both the on-line transactions and other Process
Scheduler servers, it is important to identify any poor running jobs or processes
that are scheduled to run through the Process Scheduler. This is important because
it may have a negative impact on the optimal operation of the Database as well as
the overall performance of the on-line transactions. It also may lead to excessive
job processing times.

How Quest Can Help: Quest’s APM Solution for PeopleSoft monitors the process
scheduler jobs and processes for their resource usage (CPU, memory) and the
amount of time they take to complete. At regular intervals, information on the
duration of the different jobs and processes and their run status is presented. Any
poor SQL that is run by the jobs or processes is also identified within the database.

12
 White Paper

Benefit of the Quest Solution: The Quest solutions enables administrators to

identify the poor or long running jobs that may also affect on-line transactions.
Administrators can make informed decisions about off-loading some of the batch
jobs to non-peak times to improve on-line performance. It also enables the
administrators to fine tune the SQL of some of the custom jobs that are scheduled
through the Process Scheduler.

Determining the Application Users Affected

by Poor System Performance and those Who
Cause Poor Performance
During periods of performance degradation, administrators often want to know
which users are responsible for running “rogue” queries and other inefficient activity
within the PeopleSoft environment. They also want to find out what the impact is on
other users and who is affected. This information is used to validate the activity
that is performed within the PeopleSoft environment. If the administrators find out
that a particular user is responsible for a long running query– and that query is
deemed to be valid – the administrator knows tuning of the query is required rather
than killing the user session. They also know which application user to contact to
resolve the issue. If the Application Server domain does not have enough instances
of processes configured and Tuxedo queuing occurs, then there is a need to know
how many (and which) users are affected and how much activity is affected.

How Quest Can Help: Quest’s APM Solution for PeopleSoft monitors the requests
and queuing activity for the application users within the Tuxedo layer. It also
monitors the users in the database at the same time to determine the activity they
might be running. This information can be used to identify which users are possibly
affected by, or contributing to, the performance problems. An indication about the
amount and length of queuing within the Application Sever domain is also provided.

Benefit of the Quest Solution: The Quest solutions enables administrators to

prioritize user activities to improve overall performance for all application users. It
provides administrators with historical user activity for effective communication
with the users to resolve any user-initiated problems.

13
Understanding Performance Issues in a PeopleSoft Environment

Determining which Geographical Locations

Have Problems Accessing or Performing
PeopleSoft Transactions
In large environments, where there is a large number of geographically spread
application users, or in the case of self-service applications, there is a need to
monitor end-user satisfaction. Since all the users will be accessing the same
PeopleSoft infrastructure, it is important to know whether any performance issues
experienced by the end-users is being contributed by the geographical location
itself or within the PeopleSoft Infrastructure environment.

How Quest Can Help: Quest’s Service-Model based APM Solution for PeopleSoft
can establish and monitor the end-user experience from different geographical
locations in the same map as the rest of the infrastructure components of the
PeopleSoft Application. Historical data on certain representative transactions from
these geographical locations can provide additional insight as to the time of the day
or the day of the week that end-users experience performance degradation.

Benefit of the Quest Solution: The Quest solution enables administrators to

establish “serviceable” SLAs for different geographical locations. It helps the
PeopleSoft administrator identify whether poor application performance is a factor
of the geographical location (network, access, etc.) or the PeopleSoft infrastructure
itself. It also provides Business Managers with valuable service level information for
their end-users.

14
 White Paper

CONCLUSION
The complexities of the PeopleSoft Infrastructure and the applications that run on it
make it difficult to effectively detect, diagnose and resolve performance problems.
The business critical nature of the application requires immediate resolution to
performance problems. Along with cost constraints, IT organizations are challenged
to do more with less.

Quest Software recognizes that your PeopleSoft Applications are critical

investments and that the effectiveness of your system can impact the success of
your company. Our solution is designed to deliver the right information to the right
people – from the CIO to the DBA – who are responsible for the application.

Quest has helped many companies like yours maximize the investment in their
applications by delivering the application management infrastructure and expertise
that enables your staff to manage for performance. We are so confident in our
solutions that we are providing a no charge a consulting engagement which
leverages our robust solutions to analyze and report on the performance and
availability of your PeopleSoft Application.

To learn more about the Application Performance Review, and to sign up for a free
walkthrough of the Application Performance Review process, go to
www.quest.com/apr or contact your local Quest sales representative today at
1.949.754.8000.

Related White Papers

Maximizing PeopleSoft Application Availability and Performance
By Sunil G. Shenoy and Dennis Hejna

Developing Application Performance Processes for PeopleSoft

By Richard Schiller and Bob Watt

15
Understanding Performance Issues in a PeopleSoft Environment

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sunil G. Shenoy is a product manager at Quest Software with responsibility for the
development and strategic direction of the PeopleSoft monitoring product line. Prior
to joining Quest, Sunil was with BMC Software where he focused on PeopleSoft
application performance and tuning. Sunil specializes in Enterprise Applications and
databases. He brings several years of consulting, project management, software
implementation and custom development experience to Quest.

16
 White Paper

ABOUT QUEST SOFTWARE, INC.

Quest Software, Inc. delivers innovative products that help organizations get more
performance and productivity from their applications, databases and Windows
infrastructure. Through a deep expertise in IT operations and a continued focus on
what works best, Quest helps more than 18,000 customers worldwide meet higher
expectations for enterprise IT. Quest Software can be found in offices around the
globe and at www.quest.com.

Contacting Quest Software

Phone: 949.754.8000 (United States and Canada)
Email: info@quest.com
Mail: Quest Software, Inc.
World Headquarters
5 Polaris Way
Aliso Viejo, CA 92656
USA
Web site www.quest.com

Please refer to our Web site for regional and international office information.

Contacting Quest Support

Quest Support is available to customers who have a trial version of a Quest product
or who have purchased a commercial version and have a valid maintenance
contract. Quest Support provides around the clock coverage with SupportLink, our
web self-service. Visit SupportLink at http://support.quest.com

From SupportLink, you can do the following:

• Quickly find thousands of solutions (Knowledgebase articles/documents).

• Download patches and upgrades.
• Seek help from a Support engineer.
• Log and update your case, and check its status.

View the Global Support Guide for a detailed explanation of support programs,
online services, contact information, and policy and procedures. The guide is
available at: http://support.quest.com/pdfs/Global Support Guide.pdf

17