T & IMPROVING PERFORMANCE IN COGNOS BI - Senturus...What is so Revolutionary About This? 1. Key...

Plus Automated Cognos Testing System, MotioCI

TESTING & IMPROVING PERFORMANCE IN IBM COGNOS BI

• Quick introduction

• Sources of Performance Problems

• A Three-Phase Approach to Testing and Tuning

• About Senturus

• Other Resources

• Q & A

Today’s Agenda

2 Copyright 2014 Senturus, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Presentation Slide Deck on www.senturus.com

Copyright 2014 Senturus, Inc. All Rights Reserved 3

John Boyer

Proven Practice Lead

Motio

John Peterson

CEO & Co-Founder

Senturus

Introduction: Today’s Presenters


Steve Reed-Pittman

Practice Director-Systems Integration

& Optimization Senturus

Where Is My Problem Coming From?

SOURCES OF TROUBLE

• Performance troubleshooting requires detective work

– Gather data from systems and people

– What changed, and when?

– Consider all of the possible layers

– Options for addressing performance issues vary across different Cognos versions and configurations

WHERE TO BEGIN?

Performance issues can originate from multiple layers:

• Configuration Layer

– Cognos software configuration and tuning (install/config inconsistencies, esp. in distributed environments)

• Database Layer

– Data warehouse schema design

• Metadata Layer

– Framework Manager model

• Presentation Layer

– Report Studio, Workspace Advanced, etc.

COGNOS-SPECIFIC PROBLEM AREAS

Performance issues can also originate outside of Cognos:

• Network (network speed, latency)

• Database server (concurrent query execution, contention with other databases hosted on the same db server or cluster)

• Host server architecture (CPU, RAM, disk, virtual vs. physical infrastructure)

OTHER PROBLEM AREAS

APPROACHES TO TROUBLESHOOTING

• Is your organization proactive or reactive with regard to the performance of your Cognos systems?

• When trouble strikes, quick answers can be hard to find – preventing the fire is better than fighting it!

• Tools can make this easier by providing:

• Baseline performance data

• Replicable test cases

FIRE PREVENTION VS. FIRE FIGHTING

• MotioCI as an iterative testing tool for determining changes in report execution performance (SLA testing)

• LoadRunner scripting

• Commercial and open-source application performance monitoring tools (e.g., SolarWinds, Opsview)

• Built-in OS tools (e.g., Resource Monitor, perfmon)

• Cognos Administration dashboards

SOME TOOL OPTIONS

The risk of doing this without tools or methodology:

• Lack of repeatability makes it difficult or impossible to know whether changes have made a difference

• Tools enable repeatable testing for reliable performance comparisons

WHY USE TOOLS?

Three-Phase Methodology for Performance Testing and Tuning

KEYS TO IMPROVING PERFORMANCE

Solving performance issues is like playing “Whack-a-Mole”. Every time you thought you killed the beast, it will pop up again!

The Key to Improving Performance

A three-phase approach to successfully beat performance issues in IBM Cognos

There is a need for an integrated approach in solving this problem

1. Build

2. Measure

3. Learn

Just a commodity approach?

A Three-Phase Approach to Solving Performance Issues

1. Build a) Identify all elements that can impact performance

b) Set up monitoring for capturing system performance metrics

c) Analyze user and system behavior

d) Set up test cases using MotioCI

2. Measure a) Run test cases and metrics to capture initial baseline

b) Review test results and captured metrics

c) Run load test

d) Analyze system behavior

3. Learn a) Implement tuning changes based on the results

b) Return to step 2c

c) Repeat steps until the target level of performance is achieved

A Three-Phase Approach to Solving Performance Issues

A tailor-made approach for IBM Cognos

What does your multi-disciplinary medical team look like?

1. Cognos knowledge a) Cognos Admin

b) Cognos Architect

c) Cognos Modeler

2. Infrastructure a) DBA

b) Network/firewall specialist

c) Hardware specialist

3. General roles a) Project management

b) Senturus BI specialist • Knowledge of methodology

• Knowledge of Cognos

• Knowledge of MotioCI

• Experience at different environments, organizations and infrastructure set ups

Tools, Techniques and Questions to Consider

BUILDING YOUR TEST CASE

How to Build Your Test Case

Four essential steps to being well prepared

a) Identify all elements that can impact performance



b) Set up monitoring tools for capturing system performance

metrics



c) Analyze user and system behavior

• Who is using IBM Cognos? • When are they using it? • How long, what frequency? • What do they execute? • How often? • What is used the most? • What is used during peak time? • What is taking the most time?

Running a Stress Test with MotioCI

SAMPLE TESTING



Set up test cases using MotioCI

• Define Test Cases

Cognos Stress Test with MotioCI

Cognos Reports

MotioCI Test Cases


• Configure Stress Test

Selected Stress Test

includes the

Performance Test

Cases created

above.

Configure end

condition

Configure

login options

Configure report

execution

options

Configure ramp

execution

options

• Customizing a Stress Test

– Ramped User Logins and Ramped Report Executions

– Ramped User Logins

– Ramped Report Executions

– Simulated User Interactivity


• Results Summary


Stress Test Summary and

Detail Results

• Results Summary


• Interactive and Non-Interactive Executions by Report


• Sample Reports


Concurrency vs. Test Failure



d) Set up test cases using MotioCI

How to Measure Your Test Case and Analyze the Results

Executing repeatable test cases with comparable results

a) Run test cases and metrics to capture initial baseline

b) Review test results and captured metrics


Executing repeatable test cases with comparable results

c) Run load test

d) Analyze system behavior

Analyzing Results and Making Changes

ADJUSTMENTS AND AFTERCARE


Examining the test case results

How to Improve and Tweak the Settings

Solve the bottleneck and retest

a) Implement tuning changes based on the

results

b) Return to step 2c.


Reviewing metrics from Cognos Administration server1 server2 server3

Process - Batch report service

Number of configured processes 4 4 4

Number of processes high watermark 4 4 4

Process - Report service

Number of configured processes 8 8 8

Number of processes high watermark 8 8 8

Request - Batch report service

Number of processed requests 226 210 189

Percentage of failed requests 0.00% 0.00% 0.53%

Response time high watermark 0:00:32 0:00:31 0:00:34

Seconds per successful request 0:00:26 0:00:26 0:00:27

Service time 1:36:16 1:32:13 1:24:19

Request - Report service

Number of processed requests 149 105 113

Percentage of failed requests 0.00% 0.00% 0.88%

Response time high watermark 0:00:07 0:00:22 0:00:20

Seconds per successful request 0:00:01 0:00:02 0:00:03

Service time 0:03:34 0:03:27 0:05:08


Executing repeatable test cases and viewing final results

What is so Revolutionary About This?

1. Key problem: Performance issues are hard to tackle without reliable metrics and deep knowledge of the systems in question.

2. Without a simple and repeatable approach, troubleshooting and tuning is difficult to perform effectively:

a) Unstructured troubleshooting is hard to manage, and can be both expensive and slow to produce results

b) Dependencies across multiple layers aren’t always obvious

c) Custom-made test cases often require lots of programming/scripting

3. MotioCI helps the project team focus on the core, repeatable test cases: test, analyze and measure improvement

4. Deep Cognos system expertise from Senturus provides multi-layer examination of the affected systems, interpretation of test results, recommendation of tuning changes, and implementation assistance when needed.

The right combination of tools and expertise promotes rapid results

Aftercare

Proactive monitoring of your Cognos BI environment

1. When the problems are solved, organizations need to stay healthy!

2. By constantly monitoring performance, BICC’s stay in control and on top of the quality of their BI environment:

1. Regarding performance

2. Regarding data quality

3. Regarding IBM best practices and corporate standards

Who we are

SENTURUS OVERVIEW

Our Team:

Business depth combined with technical expertise. Former CFOs, CIOs, Controllers, Directors

Senturus: Business Analytics Consultants


Business Intelligence Enterprise Planning Predictive Analytics

700+ Clients, 1400 Projects, 13 Years


OTHER RESOURCES

One hour consulting with Systems Integration and Optimization Team in which we

– Learn your organization’s performance challenges

– Provide high level guidance on the state of your environment

– Provide next steps toward potential resolution

– No cost, no obligation

Free Assessment and Recommendation

45 Copyright 2013 Senturus, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

More Information on www.senturus.com


*Custom, tailored training also available*

Cognos Training Options


For more information about the Free Assessment or MotioCI, contact

Jim Frazier

Vice-President of Client Solutions

Senturus

[email protected]

650 949 2921

FOLLOW UP

mailto:[email protected]

senturus.com 888 601 6010 [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

T & IMPROVING PERFORMANCE IN COGNOS BI - Senturus...What is so Revolutionary About This? 1. Key...

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