1. EDUCAUSE Enterprise Information & Technology Conference
Northwestern University Performance Testing PeopleSoft Campus Solutions v9.0 A Case Study
EDUCAUSE Enterprise Information & Technology Conference
Chicago, Illinois
May 29, 2008
11/12/2018
Copyright Jody Reeme and Jeff Wilson, Northwestern University This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.

2. Your Northwestern University Presenters
Jody Reeme
Associate Director,
Student Enterprise Systems
Jeff Wilson,
Business Systems Analyst,

3. About Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private institution founded in We have 18,000 students, 7,000 employees, 11 schools & colleges and campuses in Evanston, Chicago and Doha, Qatar.

4. What This Presentation is NOT
It is NOT:
Highly technical
An overview of different testing tools
A workshop on script creation
A primer on script parameterization
Intended to provide specific environment tuning solutions

5. What This Presentation Is
It is:
A primer for anyone interested in doing a performance testing project
A non-technical overview of performance testing from start to finish
Based on our experiences in conjunction with our recent upgrade to Campus Solutions v9

6. Presentation Outline Oracle/PeopleSoft products at Northwestern
Our CS v9.0 hardware & software environment
How we define performance testing
Why you might want to do performance testing
Our upgrade to v9 Campus Solutions (as it relates to performance testing )

7. Presentation Outline (2)
History and background (freshman registration)
Planning for performance testing
Who should be involved in a performance testing project
Test case requirements gathering
Test case scripting
Environment preparation

8. Presentation Outline (3)
Execution of tests
Results of tests
Remediation of issues
Lessons learned
Benefits of performance testing
Questions

9. Oracle/PeopleSoft Products at NU
Initial Implementations:
HR – 1997
Student Administration –
Financials – planned for 2008
FMS, CS & HR are all on separate databases
Our Campus Solutions Modules:
Academic Advisement
Admissions
Campus Community
Financial Aid
Student Financials
Student Records

10. Our CS 9.0 Hardware & Software Environment
PeopleTools
Campus Solutions v9.0 - Bundle 1, 2, 3 – REGS 3&4
PeopleSoft Application Portal
Oracle 10g
Oracle Grid
F5 Load Balancer
Five (5) Web Servers
Fifteen (15) Application Servers
Databases – demo (vanilla, delivered), development, test, production, QA, report and fix

11. Performance Testing Defined
Performance Testing - e.g. transaction speed under specific workload
Load Testing - e.g. create incremental demand and measure response
Stress Testing - e.g. measure system performance under controlled amounts of stress
“Performance Testing” in general - catch-all phrase to define a process of automatically and/or manually simulating processes in an environment that is as close to a production as possible. The purpose is to do extensive technical monitoring of the system and extrapolate a reasonable estimate of how the system will perform under normal use during peak usage periods. IF YOU ARE GOING TO FAIL, YOU WANT TO FAIL IN A TEST ENVIRONMENT – NOT INPRODUCTION.
Performance testing - a method to determine how fast some aspect of a system performs under a particular workload (e.g. if one 1 transaction takes 5 seconds, how many seconds does this process take as you increase demand on system resources?);
Load testing – as the process of creating incremental demand on a system and measuring its response (the purpose being to test a system and its applications by running under a full load of transactions or users); As you “ramp up the number of users, you monitor how performance is affected.
Stress testing – is measuring how a system functions when subjected to controlled amounts of stress. Example: 1,000 users trying to access system at the same time (vs. incremental load in case of load testing)

12. Why do Performance Testing?
Peace of mind
- Upgrade to Campus Solutions v9 - Freshman registration

13. Upgrade to v9 Campus Solutions
Aggressive schedule (to minimize disruption period for users)
Started planning in 11/1/06
Upgrade Go-Live 8/27/07
New load balancing hardware; new database; new server grid; new UNIX environment; new application release; and new PeopleTools release

14. Freshmen Registration - Background
The “Rock” at NU.

15. Freshmen Registration - Background
~2000 freshmen register 2 days before the start of the fall quarter
Load on the system increases throughout the day as students get closed out of classes and search for alternatives
Significant interest in a smooth day due to experiences from initial implementation and last major upgrade

16. Planning Determine scope Develop timetable
Get user input to select processes to be tested
Document processes to be scripted
Gather hardware specifications for proposed production environment
Create system diagrams
Allocate staff
Engage consultants

17. Human Resources Needed
Functional Subject Matter Experts
Business Analysts
Developers
Scripting Experts
Project Managers
Database Administrators
System Administrators

18. Test Case Requirements Gathering
Meet with functional users
Identify key business processes
Prioritize processes for testing
Automated vs. Manual
Collect statistics on processes identified

19. Test Case Scripting - Development

20. Test Case Scripting - Scripts
Login
Class Search – Simple vs. Detailed
Enrollment – with Search vs. without
Drop Classes
Degree What-if
Enrollment Verification
Unofficial Transcript
Student Account Lookup
Random Self-Service Navigation
Logout

21. Test Case Scripting – Data & Security
Data Selection & Manipulation
Script Parameterization
Security
Login IDs
New Freshmen
Current UGRDS
Staff

22. Test Case Scripting - Issues
Ever-Changing Application
Prioritization of scripts
Browsers
Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc

23. Testing Environment Preparation
“Production” Testing Environment
Refresh of Production Data
Proposed Server Setup: 8 web & 8 app servers
Student Administration Application
Data manipulation
Reset testing users passwords
Test LDAP connection
QA Data conversion
Manual walk-through of test cases
Short automated tests

24. Execution of Tests War Room Testing Equipment Tools
Staff
Equipment
Tools
Testing
Start small
Allocation of users
Ramping-up
Real-time monitoring
Time consuming

25. Results of Tests “Lather, Rinse, & Repeat” Analyze and Discuss
Plan/Adjust Next Round
Remediation of Issues

26. Lessons Learned
Begin tracking statistics as soon as you think you may do performance testing
Determine benchmarks for performance levels
Clarify responsibility and resources for performance monitoring
Performance testing needs to be integrated into upgrade or implementation plan
Communication is key!
Plan, plan, plan!

27. Benefits of Performance Testing
Monitoring showed need to modify number and ratio of application and web servers
Testing helped gain confidence that the application could handle the load
Testing helped “shake out” our production environment
Facilitated user acceptance from a student and staff perspective
Successful freshman registration

28. Questions?

29. Contacts Jody Reeme Associate Director, Student Enterprise Systems
Jeff Wilson
Business Systems Analyst,