BEST PRACTICES FOR STRESS TESTING HYPERION v11

WHY STRESS TEST HYPERION v11? Whilst Hyperion v11 is a compelling proposition to group nance teams seeking to shorten nancial close cycles and build better processes, the upgrade entails a signicant number of changes at an IT and business level. It introduces Oracles new EPM architecture, built on SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), to allow wider integration and the incorporation of additional, new EPM applications. The target platform for most organisations is based on new 64-bit servers. The benets may be clear but a strategy for managing change and minimizing risk needs to be part of the delivery plan. Comprehensive stress testing and go-live performance monitoring with diagnostics dramatically reduce the risks -both are recommended to ensure the environment is sufciently specied and delivers to the expectation of stakeholders and users. Some organisations simply ask their user base to test the system. Ironically these tests are unrepresentative, unrepeatable and prone to too many external factors.

BEST PRACTICES FOR STRESS TESTING Triometric use a best practice approach to testing of Hyperion systems, honed over a signicant number of customer engagements. This start-to-nish methodology introduces a structured approach with representative tests, staged loading with clear outcomes and at go-live, performance monitoring with diagnostics on the real user performance just when it matters most. Simulated user testing just using automated tools does not provide sufcient information about the components within the application or infrastructure that might require optimisation. However this approach, in conjunction with Triometrics Enterprise Analyzer, does allow each individual application request to be captured and analyzed. This includes end-to-end transaction time broken down into the network latency and server response times, for all key Hyperion components, to accurately predict the remote users application experience. Triometric offers a three-step service when stress testing Hyperion v11 upgrades which includes the preparatory phase, testing phase and validation phase.

HYPERION v11 EPM ARCHITECTURE INFRASTRUCTURE

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MANAGER REPORTER

TAP OR SPANPORT WAN USERS

TRIOMETRIC ENTERPRISE ANALYZER

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TRIOMETRICS EXPERTISE AND APPROACH TO STRESS TESTING AND MONITORING v11 HAS DEFINITELY MADE THE UPGRADE JOURNEY SMOOTHER.
Catriona Harrison, Director, Financial Control Group Reporting Systems, Invensys plc

PREPARATORY PHASE This initial phase involves reviewing the current environment to assess peak user loads, usage of key Hyperion components, forms and reports as well as the geographic distribution of the user community. Triometrics Enterprise Analyzer is the ideal solution for capturing this information which then forms the basis for dening test scenarios and creating realistic test scripts. Decisions are also made at this stage on the load levels the test should be performed at and from which locations they should be run. For the testing to be of any value, these must collectively represent the anticipated server workload.

VALIDATION PHASE The remaining step is to validate the system performance at go-live. This is the true testimony of real world performance when actual users are on the production system - the main objective is to compare the real trafc with the simulated load test results. This is the critical period in the project lifecycle so monitoring the application closely to provide visibility of performance and usage is essential to ensure that any issues can be diagnosed and resolved quickly. The deliverable from this phase is a performance validation report which documents the health of the system and provides further recommendations to optimise the environment. Below are two examples of the performance of Web Forms and Smart View showing comparisons between the test results and the actual performance from a users perspective when the system rst goes live into production.

TEST PHASE This second phase constitutes running the planned tests at increasing load levels, starting with a baseline test; a single user simulated from all the test locations. This baseline establishes the unit levels for comparison with the multi-user tests, ensures that the scripts run as expected and the system is free of issues. The subsequent tests at various load levels are then executed from the specied locations. When all tests have been completed successfully, the results are documented in a performance test report which highlights the ndings and recommendations for optimising the application and infrastructure so any issues can be rectied immediately without losing precious project time. Depending on the outcome, a series of isolated tests may be conducted to ensure all go-live criteria are met before going into production. Below are two graphs from a test showing total response and network times, by component and country.

Web Form Comparative End-to-end Response Time Distributions

500 End-to-end Response Time (seconds) 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 80% 85% 90% Percentile 300u Load Test 95% 100%

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Smart View Comparative End-to-end Response Time Distributions Average End-to-end Response Time (seconds) by Component
End-to-end Response Time (seconds) 7 Average Response Time (seconds) 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Data Grid Document Manager HR - Display Report Smart View Static Web Form 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 80% 82% 84% 86% 88% 90% Percentile 92% 94% 96% 98% 100%

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Average Network Time (seconds) by Component

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Data Grid Document Manager HR - Display Report Smart View Static Web Form

CONTINUOUS MONITORING Stress testing is just an initial part of the application lifecycle. Continuous monitoring after go-live is recommended by ITIL. Performance and usage should be tracked in a proactive manner against SLAs with alerting for efcient management of the environment. The data, collated over time, should be used to benchmark the improvements in the service and validate investments. Finally, the feedback allows both Finance and IT to manage and meet the expectations of the stakeholders and users of the system.

Average Response Time (seconds)

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TRI/PS/009 All information was correct at the time of production. Triometric 2011

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