PS360 enhancement: Added report of DDL models

I have written several blogs and presentations recently about how and how not to collect statistics in PeopleSoft.

• Managing Cost-Based Optimizer Statistics for PeopleSoft recommends
• If you are going to continue to use DBMS_STATS in the DDL model then
• Do not specify ESTIMATE_PERCENT because it disables the hash-based number-of-distinct-values calculation, forcing it to go back to the COUNT(DISTINCT …) method that requires a sort, and may not produce accurate values because it only samples data.
• Do not specify METHOD_OPT='FOR ALL INDEXED COLUMNS SIZE 1' because this will not collect histograms on indexed columns, and will not update column statistics on unindexed columns.
• Do specify FORCE=>TRUE so that you can lock and delete statistics on temporary records.
• However, the alternative is to use GFCSTATS11 package to collects these statistics.  This package is controlled by a metadata table so you can defined statistics collection behaviour for specific records.
• How Not to Collect Optimizer Statistics in an Application Engine Program
• This blog explains why you should not explicitly code DBMS_STATS calls into Application Engine programs.

This has prompted me to add a new report to the PS360 utility that simply reports the various DDL models for Oracle.  Thus during a health check, I can see how statistics are collected during batch processes.

PS360 can be download from https://github.com/davidkurtz/ps360.

PS360: A Utility to Extract and Present PeopleSoft Configuration and Performance Data

Introduction

Most of a PeopleSoft application is itself stored in the database in PeopleTools tables.  Therefore there is lot of information about the configuration and operation of a PeopleSoft system.  There are also performance metrics, particularly about batch processes.
PS360 is a new tool on which I am working.  It just uses SQL scripts to extract that data to html files, and package them up in a zip file so that they can be sent for further analysis.  The style and method is closely modelled on Enkitec's EDB360 by Carlos Sierra.  This is another free tool used for health check and performance analysis of any Oracle database system.  PS360 aims to gather PeopleSoft specific information that is not presented by EDB360.  It also runs in Oracle's SQL*Plus tool, and so is only available for use with an Oracle database.
Every section of PS360 is just the output of a SQL query, sometimes pre-processing is done in an anonymous PL/SQL block.  It does not install anything into the database, and does not update any table (other than the PLAN_TABLE which is used for temporary working storage).  Each report is in tabular and/or graphical format.  All the charts are produced with the Google chart API.

The output falls into three sections.  

• Configuration: Simple reports of certain configuration tables.
• Performance Metrics: Process Scheduler and Application Engine timings
• Consistency Checks: both within PeopleTools tables and between the PeopleSoft and Oracle catalogues.

Sample PS360 Index Page generated on PeopleSoft Demo Database

Instructions

The tool can be run by anyone with access to the PeopleSoft Owner database user (usually SYSADM).  That user will already have the privilege to read the Oracle catalogue.
Download the tool and unzip it into a directory.

• Navigate to the ps360 (master) directory
• Open SQL*Plus and connect as the owner of the PeopleSoft database (usually SYSADM).
• Execute the script ps360.sql.  
• The output will be written to a zip file in the same directory.  
• Unpack that zip file on your own PC.
• Open the file ps360_[database name]_0_index.html with a browser.

Feedback Enhancements

I am looking for feedback about the tool, and suggestions for further enhancements.
Please either leave comments here or e-mail me at info@go-faster.co.uk.