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GETTING UP TO SPEED: A COLLABORATIVE STUDY ENABLES DEVRY UNIVERSITY TO IMPROVE THE PERFORMANCE OF THEIR ORACLE STUDENT SYSTEM Naperville, IL: Optimizing an IT system is never easy, but there is an easier way to do it: Collaboration. That’s why Utopia Solutions worked with Cisco Systems, DeVry University, Fujitsu, Mercury Interactive (HP Software), Oracle, and Sun Microsystems to conduct a unique benchmarking study. Hosted at the Sun Customer Benchmark Center in Menlo Park, California, the objective was to markedly improve the performance of the Oracle Student System (OSS) at DeVry University—a goal that was clearly achieved. What’s more, this overall effort could serve as a model for others who want to improve their IT infrastructure. A Recurring Problem Twice a Semester Based on Oracle’s E-Business Suite and using the Oracle database, the OSS is an integrated suite of software solutions designed to manage student recruiting, admissions, and enrollment as well as academic records and other curriculum-based information. But with more than 70 locations in the United States and Canada and over 49,000 students, implementing this system presented DeVry University with a key challenge: Addressing performance slowdowns during registration periods and other peak times. And they had to address this slowdown without changing user behavior. After all, while some batch-oriented activities (about 10% of the transactions) could be deferred to off-peak times, grading and student registration was time-bound. Compounding this situation, they didn’t have the information related to scaling to help them predict the resources required for meeting the varying load volumes. They did know, however, that users had to be able to access the system both on-site at all of their locations and over the Internet. And they had to allow for both Web-based and form-based transactions. Even with these restrictions, the team set an aggressive goal: Cut the end-user transaction times in half. In other words, double the performance of DeVry’s OSS. Putting DeVry’s IT Environment to the Test Aiming to closely replicate DeVry’s network infrastructure, hardware, software, and transactions, the team set to work: Cisco Systems for the network equipment (i.e., routers, switches, and load balancers), Fujitsu for the firewall equipment, Mercury Interactive (HP Software) for the LoadRunner test application, Oracle for the OSS, Sun Microsystems for the servers, OS, and the facility, and Utopia Solutions for test management, development, execution and analysis. In developing the performance tests, Utopia Solutions aimed to simulate such typical user activities as enrolling a student and posting a grade and included both Web-based and form-based transactions. Then to further replicate the traffic patterns found at DeVry, six load generators were placed throughout the network to simulate user activities coming from inside and outside the firewall and over both secured and unsecured connections. The Results: Substantial Performance Gains The study found that the way the servers were originally deployed was causing a bottleneck, resulting in the slowdowns, and they found a solution: go to non-dedicated, fully load-balanced application servers. This easy fix dramatically improved response time by approximately 40%. They also found that disk operations significantly dropped and that database utilization also dropped by approximately 30% when they moved the Oracle Concurrent Manager software from the application servers to the database server, enabling the testers to increase the number of overall users to the system. By revising their server deployment plans based on these findings, DeVry was able to noticeably improve the overall performance of their actual OSS implementation. And, perhaps more significantly, by collaborating with a team of industry experts to simulate their infrastructure, DeVry was able to conduct their test in a closed setting and to identify the improvements without the potential of negatively affecting their day-to-day IT operations. With such a significant outcome—and with very little risk to their IT operations—other organizations should clearly consider utilizing this collaborative IT optimization model as well. About Utopia Solutions Utopia Solution is a global quality and testing firm known for its innovative QA solutions built from over a decade of experience working for 200 of the Fortune 500. As one of the largest HP Software integration partners, their mission is to improve user productivity, reduce application downtime, and maximize system performance for their clients. With a range of packaged and custom service solutions for Fortune 500 and Fortune 2000 companies, their primary practice areas include: Functional Test Automation, Performance Management, Application Management, and Software Process Improvement. In addition to their headquarters in Naperville, Illinois, they maintain three service offices: Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dallas, Texas, and Mountain View, California. Please contact Utopia directly for detailed information on value delivery, partnership with HP, and product and service offerings. FOR MORE INFORMATION Lee Barnes 630-579-4655 lee.barnes@utopiasolutions.com |
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