In order to qualify for support from your software vendors, you must use a supported operating system. oracle maintains a certification matrix that documents the operating systems and other supporting software both on server and client.
Table 1.14 Troubleshooting Steps
Major Version Symptom Recommended Action
ALL Essbase does not start 1. Check disk space on application and data drives 2. review hyperion log files
3. review operating system log files and/or windows event viewer
4. versions 9–11.1.1 Confirm Shared Services and openLDAP are started; assumes you are using Shared Services security
ALL Application does
not start 1. Check disk space on application and data drives 2. review hyperion log files
3. Confirm no other ESSSvr processes are running for specific application name
4. Confirm that no third-party backup process has application files locked
5. Cycle machine if 3 and 4 are not issues
6. If cycling machine does not work, you likely have a corrupted database
7. Confirm you have a good backup before proceeding with this step. remove the following type of files from your database directories: *.ind, *.pag, *.esm,
*.tct. next start the database, then restore and calculate your data
ALL Corrupt security file 1. Essbase.log file says your security file is corrupted 2. Locate last backup of the file (ideally from previous
night), restore and restart Essbase
Table 1.15 Troubleshooting Tools
Platform Tool and Notes
Windows/unix • Wireshark
• Web site: http://wireshark.org
• network packet capture and tracing software that was formerly called Ethereal Windows/unix • netstat, Ping, and telnet
• tracert (Windows)/traceroute (unix)
• Basic utilities to troubleshoot networking and ports
Windows • Fiddler
• Web site: http://www.fiddler2.com
• Web debugging proxy software. When installed, sits between your windows Web browser and the Internet; useful for debugging sessions
Windows/unix • Iozone
• Web site: http://www.iozone.org
• Disk benchmarking tool
Windows • Atto’s guI Disk benchmarking tool
• Web site: http://www.attotech.com/products/product.php?sku=Disk_Benchmark
Windows • Perfmon
• Windows internal performance monitor Firefox Browser • Firebug
• Web site: http://getfirebug.com
• Debug and monitor CSS, htmL, and JavaScript Windows • Process monitor and process explorer
• Web site: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals Process monitor monitors file system, registry, and process/thread activity in real time.
• The main reason I like Process Explorer is you can see the full path of the command and, therefore, when looking at ESSSvr you know which process ID is associated with a given application; of course, you may review the log files grab the process ID out and review that column in task manager as well.
unix • ps, iostat, vmstat, grep
Linux • nmon
• Web site: http://nmon.sourceforge.net
• Console guI that allows you to monitor key performance information in one location
Table 1.16 Tuning Guides
Document Title Document Location Authoring Company
Linux Performance and tuning guidelines www.redbooks.ibm.com IBm Performance tuning guidelines for Windows
Server 2008 r2 msdn.microsoft.com microsoft
AIx 5L Practical Performance tools and tuning
guide www.redbooks.ibm.com IBm
EPm – oBI Product Assurance Engineering Blog blogs.oracle.com/pa oracle
hP-ux Performance Cookbook Perform a Web search hewlett Packard
oracle Database Support for Server virtualization oracle.com oracle
ISv Licensing in virtualized Environments vmware.com vmware
1.7.2 Antivirus
Essbase is a multidimensional database that stores data and key security information in binary files. Like other database software antivirus scans of the database, files can cause performance issues. oracle recommends excluding antivirus real-time scanning of the hyperion installation directories and/or a scheduled scan with the hyperion suite shutdown.
1.7.3 Hyperthreading
Intel released a technology called hyperthreading in 2003. This technology makes one core appear as two cores to the operating system. Some applications have a performance gain with hyperthreading and some have a net loss. Essbase experiences a net loss in performance with hyperthreading and every server that runs the ESSBASE/ESSvr processes should have hyperthreading disabled. The performance loss to Essbase from hyperthreading is between 15 and 20%. Conversely, the Java application servers do have a performance gain.
1.7.4 Virtual versus Physical
Installation on a physical machine is straightforward. Essbase will have all the perfor-mance characteristics of that machine.
virtualization for Intel x86 servers went mainstream in 2001 with the introduction of vmware’s server virtualization. In the decade since, virtualization has become a normal tool in It datacenters.
virtualization apportions the physical machine into logical segments or virtual machines (vms) that run independently of one another. vm performance depends on the competing requirements of the other vms running on the physical machine plus some virtualization overhead. virtualization can offer many benefits when used prop-erly with flexible scalability and fault tolerance as the two main strengths.
I have seen virtualization work well as well as work poorly. In the cases where it works poorly, the issues are a combination of age of the physical hardware, lack of resources (CPu/memory) on physical hardware, overcommitted virtual machines, and poor per-formance of the storage subsystems. Consider physical machines or large-scale unix implementations for more than 500 users.
When using virtualization, I recommend vmware as I feel they have a focused con-centration and vested interest in the technology compared to other vendors who spread their focus on more products. See table 1.17 for a listing of virtualization products.
1.7.5 Ensure File Systems Are Fully Formatted
IBm’s AIx has a hard drive partitioning it brands as LPAr (Logical Partition). LPArs may host IBm operating systems other than AIx as well; however, AIx is the only oper-ating system on the IBm PoWEr platform that supports the hyperion stack.
hP’s hPux nPar technology is their hard partitioning technology.
The Solaris equivalent hard partitioning technology has been branded oraclevm Server, which was previously named LDom (Logical Domains). oracle also has made oraclevm Server available in their oracle Enterprise Linux (a redhat Linux variant).
1.7.6 Named User versus Processor Licensing
oracle has two main user licensing schemes: named user and Processor Licensing.
Processor licensing allows for an unlimited number of users, but limits performance
based on number of cores. When using Processor Licensing with virtualization, oracle requires either a hard partitioning capable virtualization to be used or specifies the physical number of cores in the hardware hosting the vms. This latter requirement usually has architectural implications for systems using soft partitioning, e.g., vmware and hyper-v.
Table 1.17 Virtualization Software
Vendor Product Notes
vmware ESxi • When used with oracle Processor licenses, you must ensure that you have enough processor licenses for every CPu on the physical machine that are in the resource pool. For instance, if you have 3 Physical Servers with a total
of 30 cores, then you would need to have a processor license supporting 15 CPus (using the current CPu factor of .5).
This is regardless of how many virtual CPus your given Essbase server may have allocated.
microsoft hyper-v • microsoft acquired the underlying technology in 2003 with the purchase of Connectix’s virtual PC.
• When used with oracle Processor licenses you must ensure that you have enough processor licenses for every CPu on the physical machine that is in the resource pool. For instance, if you have 3 Physical Servers with a total of 30 cores, then you would need to have a processor license supporting 15 CPus (using the current CPu factor of .5).
This is regardless of how many virtual CPus your given Essbase server may have allocated.
IBm AIx LPAr • IBm’s AIx has a hard partitioning they brand as LPAr (Logical Partitions). LPArs may host IBm operating systems other than AIx as well; however, AIx is the only operating system on the IBm PoWEr platform the supports the hyperion stack. LPArS are fully compatible with oracle Processor Licensing.
hewlett Packard hPux nPar and
vPar • hP’s hPux has a technology called nPar that is their hard partitioning technology. The virtual partitioning technology is called vPar. Both nPar and vPar are fully compatible with oracle Processor licensing.
xen.org xen • An open source virtualization platform with contributions to its code base from many industry heavyweights, such as Amazon, IBm, Citrix, and oracle. to ensure full
compatibility with oracle Processor licensing, a
configuration setting to pin CPus to limit those for specific virtual machines must be used.
oracle oracle vm
Server for x86 • The x86 oracle vm Server is based on xen virtualization platform. to ensure full compatibility with oracle Processor licensing, a configuration setting to pin CPus to limit those for specific virtual machines must be used.
oracle Sun Dynamic
System Domain • Dynamic System Domains are fully compatible with oracle Processor licensing.
1.8 ConClusion
In closing this chapter, I hope you found this information valuable or at least entertaining for those of you of the geek persuasion.
1.8.1 Parting Shots
• Essbase thrives on CPu, memory, and I/o.
• Skimping on your hardware costs time, money, and effort in the end.
• Always have a nonproduction environment.
• Failure to maintain proper backups will give you or at least your users a headache.
• Do not mix upgrades and redesigns and expect to have both go live at the same time.
• test, test, test.
• Always read the documentation.
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