Oracle performance

The testing process

A performance test is a multi step process and consists of the following basic tests:

• Configuration test
• Load test
• Stress test (optional)

The objective of a configuration test is to verify that all elements that make up the Oracle Forms environment are properly and well scaled configured. The configurable elements are the hardware resources, the operating systems of the Oracle application server and the Oracle database server, the application server, including the Oracle HTTP Server (OHS), the Oracle container and Forms Services, and the Oracle database including the database listener. For instance, insufficient physical memory or desktop heap (Windows) limits the maximum number of concurrent users, or the webserver can handle a too limited number of concurrent connections or the database listener can spawn only a too limited number of dedicated database sessions. These kind of scalability problems will without a performance test occur when the Forms application goes live.

The difference between a load and stress test is the objective of the test. For a stress test you are interested in the maximum load and/or concurrent users the Oracle Forms environment can handle. For a load test you are interested in the performance and resource usage of the Oracle Forms environment during typical production load. Form2test is suitable for both tests. Although the stress test is an optional test it does provide some useful input for capacity planning.

Configuration test

For conducting a configuration test only a single script for simulating an 'inactive' user session is needed. The user session starts the Forms application, then logs into the database stays idle for some time before closing the Oracle Forms application again. The next step is to schedule a scenario setting the load behavior to start 1 ?inactive? user session every 5 seconds gradually and start the scenario.

Example: A configuration test for 300 user sessions requires an idle time for at least 25 minutes ( = 300*5 / 60 ). The duration of the configuration test will take 50 minutes. 25 minutes for the ramp up and 25 minutes for the ramp down.

Tip: During the configuration test you should run the Performance Monitor (Windows), nmon (AIX or Linux) or a comparable tool to collect the performance statistics for the application server. Especially, disk, memory and CPU (kernel and user) usage are very important counters.

If the test fails you should examine the log files to determine the cause of the failed user sessions. If the test passes you should examine the client side performance statistics and the server side statistics ( see Analyzing the results).

Load / stress test

The first step for a load test is to design one or more test scenarios or test cases. A test scenario defines the typical working conditions for the Forms application under test. A test scenario defines the number of users to simulate, the typical business processes they perform and the series of steps to collect individual performance statistics for. For instance opening a form or steps that comprise a complex database operation. These user actions are often based on predefined acceptation criteria!

The creation process for a stress test is similar to a load test. The test scenario is often based on the same set of scripts only the number of users to simulate and the load differs. A stress test consists out of more test scenarios. Each with an increasing load and number of users to simulate.