Performance Testing in ORACLE Apps

-An Overview

History of Oracle AppsOracle Applications comprise the applications software or business software of the Oracle Corporation

It was released as Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS/ e-BS) Release 12 (R12) — a bundling of several Oracle Applications — in February 2007

It consists of a collection of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) computer apps either developed or acquired by Oracle

It utilizes Oracle's core Oracle Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) technology

Oracle Corporation brands the on-line technical documentation of EBS as eTRM — "E-Business Suite Technical Reference Manuals"

Tiered Architecture in Oracle Apps

Web Browser from User side

Database Tier

Application Tier

Desktop Tier

ORACLE Database Server

App, Web & Form Servers

Form Client Applet

Supports all Oracle EBS Products

Collection of all Java Archive

(JAR) files

Collection of all Java classes

to run the presentation

Desktop Java Client

Form Client must run with a JVM

(Java Virtual Machine) on Desktop

All JARs are cached locally

on Client JAR files

Eliminate network traffic

Tiered Architecture : Desktop Tier

•Contains the Oracle database server that stores and manages all the data maintained by Oracle EBS i.e. the tables, indexes, and other database objects as well as the database executable. It also stores the Oracle EBS online help information.•The database server communicates with the services and servers on the application tier, which mediate the communications between the database and the clients.

Tiered Architecture : Database Tier

Web Services Form Services

Concurrent Processing Server

Listener Servelet

Load Balancing during peak hour

Re-establish dropped connection

Firewall and Proxy configuration

Robust and secure deployment over internet

Tiered Architecture : Application Tier

Process the request received from client

Web Listener (Apache Oracle HTTP)

Java Servelet Engine (OC4J) acts as

container

Oracle Process Manager (OPMN)

Use OS facilities to allow non-interactive

(Background) scheduling of data and long-running intensive jobs

to be executed efficiently along with frontend through a set of programs and

ensure that backend and frontend don’t interfere with intensive concurrent operations

EBS Tech Layer

Oracle App DBA (AD)Install, Upgrade, Maintain and Patch EBS

EBS Tech Layer : Features

App Object Library(FND)Reusable code, program and database object

App Utility (AU)Maintain EBS, Collect other files, Generate forms and reports

Common Module (AK)Define characteristics of EBS components

Work Flow (WF)Modelling, Automation and Improvement of Business Workflow

Oracle Alert (ALR)Notify user incase of any Exception, Error

Oracle Framework (FWK)Framework to support app development within EBS

XML Publisher (XDO)Template to produce o/p report in desired format.

Load Balancing in Oracle Apps

DNS

Web

Services(HTTP)

Form Services

OC4J

Concurrent

Process

Database Servers

Layer 4 Load BalancingLayer 7 Load Balancing

Response

Time

Response Time is the total amount of time it takes to

respond to a request for service (speed of task

completion)

System

Throughput

System Throughput is a measure of work completed

successfully in a given amount of time.

MTBF/MTTR

Mean time between failures (MTBF) is the predicted elapsed

time between inherent failures of a system during

operation.

Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) average time required to repair

it.

UptimeUptime is the measure of system reliability/stability, up

to which it can be left unattended without crashing.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

E2E Response Time

Network Response

Time

DB Response

Time

Client Response Time

Form Server Response Time

KPI : Factors affecting Response TimeIn Oracle Apps environment, the below are the major factors which more-or-less contribute to End-to-End Response Time.

Key Performance Indicator : DB and App Tier

Endurance

If application can sustain minimum virtual user load (10-15 concurrent users) within standard Response time and CPU memory consumption

If application can sustain increased backend data volume or at critical DB levels

If application can sustain maximum user load or high load during peak hours of business

If application can sustain continuous load for 8-12 hours

Stress

Volume

Baseline

Load

Performance Testing in Oracle Apps

If application can sustain real world user load within gradual ramp up/ramp down criteria

Performance Testing Life Cycle in Oracle Apps

Detailed system study of Oracle Apps module and interface apps

Performance Testing Life Cycle : Requirement Analysis

Understand environment and requirement gathering

Best practices to be utilized while design/testing

Preparation of Oracle Apps Performance Questionnaire

Identifies the test scenarios for performance testing

Derive performance Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Study usage details of application

Study other interfaces used by customer which could affect testing

Test planning document to be signed by all stakeholders

Performance Testing Life Cycle : Test Planning

Prepare performance test strategy, risk/mitigation plan

Estimate efforts and plan for resources

Define test objective, scope, activity and responsibility

Identifies the test scenarios for performance testing

Finalize, setup and validate test environment

Performance Testing Life Cycle : Test Implementation

Develop scripts and scenarios according to script standard

Create and finalize test data for each identified scenario

Conduct smoke test to verify scripts

Establish run time settings standard

Scripts are loaded into tool for execution

Performance Testing Life Cycle : Test Execution

Scripts are executed with identified/verified data

Baseline scripts are created for reference

Load, Stress, Endurance, Volume testing are done

If required, multiple cycles of execution are carried out

Server components are monitored to find bottlenecks(if any)

Execution logs are prepared and maintained

Oracle Application Testing Suite (OATS) is an integrated web app testing tool that ensure the scalability and reliability of critical business applications

Performance Testing Tool in Oracle : OATS

Oracle Functional Testing – Automated functional and regression testing

Oracle Load Testing – Scalability and load testing of web appsOracle Test Manager – Test process management and defect tracking

Disadvantage:Supports only Web-based applications

Advantage:Inbuilt Job Scheduler to schedule functional and regression testing“Data Bank” feature that allow to build data driven testing for regression

Supports less protocols such as Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and few web based protocols

Oracle Apps Testing Suits (OATS)

HP Load Runner

Oracle Apps Testing Suits (OATS) vs HP LoadRunner

Supports many types of protocols which covers almost all kinds of applications

Provide in-built support and correlation mainly to other Oracle technologies

Provide in-built support and manual correlation for almost every kind of technology

Oracle scripting environment supports coding only using ‘Java’

Supports ‘Java’ and ‘C’ languages for script development

It is available on Testing-as-a-Service (TaaS) model

It is available on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model

Faces difficulties while identifying objects in Internet Explorer

Doesn’t require object identification