Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server: Oracle 11i Bandwidth ... · Oracle 11i E-Business Suite running in a server based computing environment enabled by MetaFrame XP. Approach To

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By Citrix Consulting

Citrix Systems, Inc.

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Copyright © 2003 Citrix Systems, Inc., 851 W Cypress Creek Road, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida 33309 U.S.A. All rights reserved.

Version History

1.0 Drew Robbins, Citrix Consulting Services March 7, 2003

1.1 Doug Dobson, Citrix Consulting Services. Final Review May 2, 2003

Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................................................ 1

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY................................................................................................................................................................ 2 APPROACH ................................................................................................................................................................................... 2 KEY FINDINGS............................................................................................................................................................................... 3

Network Bursts ....................................................................................................................................................................... 3 JAR File Caching .................................................................................................................................................................... 3

CUSTOM ORACLE 11I SCRIPTS.................................................................................................................................................. 4 REQUIREMENTS AND ASSUMPTIONS ................................................................................................................................................ 4 ORACLE 11I - AR CUSTOMER & INVOICE TO GL SCRIPT ................................................................................................................... 4

ENVIRONMENT ARCHITECTURE................................................................................................................................................ 7 CITRIX METAFRAME XP PRESENTATION SERVER ............................................................................................................................. 8 ORACLE SECONDARY AND TERTIARY TIERS...................................................................................................................................... 8 HARDWARE SPECIFICATIONS .......................................................................................................................................................... 9 SOFTWARE AND PLATFORM SPECIFICATIONS.................................................................................................................................. 10 CITRIX METAFRAME XP PRESENTATION SERVER CONFIGURATION .................................................................................................. 11 INTERNET EXPLORER 6.0 CONFIGURATION .................................................................................................................................... 12

RESULTS AND ANALYSIS ......................................................................................................................................................... 13 JAR FILE CACHING ENABLED ....................................................................................................................................................... 13 JAR FILE CACHING DISABLED ...................................................................................................................................................... 14

CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................................................................................................... 16

APPENDIX A: EEYE IRIS SNIFFER............................................................................................................................................ 17

APPENDIX B: MS SQL ANALYSIS............................................................................................................................................. 18

Citrix MetaFrame XP Presentation Server: Oracle 11i Bandwidth Analysis iii

Introduction Oracle 11i E-Business Suite is a complete set of business applications or modules, which enable companies to efficiently manage and integrate processes. These processes include every aspect of the business; customer relationship management, finance, human resources manufacturing, supply chain management, asset management and project management, among others. Oracle 11i provides business automation across an enterprise because all applications that comprise the suite are engineered to work together.

Citrix Consulting conducted a server scalability and bandwidth testing project for Oracle 11i, specifically for the Accounts Receivable module. All testing was completed using Citrix® MetaFrame XP™ Presentation Server, Enterprise Edition. The result of these tests provided valuable information required to compare the implementation of Oracle 11i through a server based computing model versus Oracle 11i running as a typical web application. Refer to the document MetaFrame XP Oracle 11i Application Scalability Analysis for details on the scalability of the Oracle 11i application running on a MetaFrame XP server.

Scalability analysis of a Citrix MetaFrame XP Presentation Server involves two key approaches:

• Server scalability and resources. How many users can a client reasonably expect to run efficiently on a server and within a MetaFrame XP server farm.

• Application Bandwidth. What are the network characteristics of the application, and what are the network characteristics of the application when delivered via the Citrix Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) protocol.

The objective of this document is to address the “application bandwidth” characteristics using a basic scenario. The information presented is intended as a starting point for more robust analysis, which would involve auditing users and systems in a pilot environment and/or developing complex scenarios driving automated scripts.

Citrix MetaFrame XP Presentation Server: Oracle 11i Bandwidth Analysis 1

Executive Summary The increased processing power of desktop computing has allowed many organizations to reevaluate the typical client/server architecture. Information Technology (IT) departments are realizing that centralizing the delivery of application processing can reduce the administrative and physical costs of maintaining an IT infrastructure. One manner in which to ease administrative costs is to lower the amount of client workstation upgrades and the amount of user support by deploying “web applications”. By allowing users to access web applications using a client-side Internet browser, the client workstation does not need to be upgraded when application code is updated and user support is minimized by providing the browser as a common user interface to multiple applications.

One potential side effect with web applications is the amount of bandwidth that they may consume. Depending on the application functionality and architecture, some web applications may be prone to network bursts. The network bursts typically occur because the externally located web client is requesting data that resides in a centrally located data storage network. If the client requests large quantities of information, network resources can be stressed for short periods of time, ultimately resulting in performance issues for the end user.

MetaFrame XP can assist in alleviating the network bursts that are present in a typical web application environment by passing minimal keyboard, mouse, and video information over the slower WAN network segments. This enables the network bursts that are present between the web browser and the web server to be limited to an isolated high speed network. Citrix consulting has undertaken the task of evaluating the bandwidth efficiency of the Oracle 11i E-Business Suite running as a typical web application versus the Oracle 11i E-Business Suite running in a server based computing environment enabled by MetaFrame XP.

Approach To determine the bandwidth utilization of the Oracle 11i application, a test environment was created using one MetaFrame XP server running Oracle 11i using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0. A user executed a script that ran through several functions within the Accounts Receivable module of the Financials application within the E-Business Suite. The inbound and outbound network activity from the MetaFrame XP server to the ICA client was monitored to determine the bandwidth consumed over the WAN in a server based computing environment. While the same script was executed, the inbound and outbound network activity from the MetaFrame XP server to the Oracle servers was monitored to determine the bandwidth consumed when Oracle 11i is run as a typical web application. The resulting data was then analyzed to determine the effects of server based computing on bandwidth utilization when using the Oracle 11i E-Business Suite.

The following key considerations were critical to a fair and objective evaluation:

• Caching. Because of the advanced caching option available with 11i, the tests were performed using both caching enabled and disabled. We would expect that most 11i users would run with caching enabled.

• Bandwidth Average. Average comparisons are only meaningful if correlated with data / business processing events. This was out-of-scope for the current evaluation, but we have presented some figures that will allow readers to better understand the network characteristics of this deployment

• Business Drivers. Deployment of a web-based application will not solely be driven by network characteristics. Management, TCO, accelerated ROI, performance, and reliability are all factors when evaluating a solution.


Key Findings

Network Bursts

Oracle 11i is a highly optimized application that leverages advanced caching techniques to minimize network traffic/requirements. Oracle 11i performs very well when running both as a web application and in a server based computing architecture. With Oracle 11i running as a web application, the network was susceptible to large spikes in bandwidth utilization. The following figures are from the ‘caching enabled test’:

• 7 bursts greater than 200K were observed

• ICA generated a single spike greater than 200K, at initial logon

• ICA traffic averaged 22K throughout the entire test

• Oracle web traffic averaged 16K throughout the entire test

• During the duration of each of the Oracle ‘peak’ bandwidth actions, ICA continued to average 22K

Average bandwidth of web-based application over a time period will often appear lower than comparative ICA traffic for the same period. The reason for this is that a web application is not transmitting or receiving data when the user is idle or simply entering data. Instead, the data will occur in bursts that can be significant, such as noted in the test.

These bursts can be significant, as they can ‘consume’ all available bandwidth for the time of the data transmission and cause a subjective and objective degradation in performance for all users operating on that network link. In the case of the observed test, this was true on seven different occasions.

ICA, in contrast, allows for ‘smoothing’ of the data flow and ensured that the traffic remained well below 100K, and virtually guaranteed that each user would have a logical, dedicated channel and receive consistent performance. A more accurate way to assess the bandwidth would be to correlate the bandwidth utilization to critical business activities, then evaluate the objective and subjective application performance.

Depending on the frequency and intensity of the spikes, running Oracle 11i in a MetaFrame XP architecture over a slow WAN link can provide significant benefits to the end user because the network will maintain a more constant bandwidth utilization.

JAR File Caching

JAR file caching allows web browsers to cache Java applet information the first time that a website is accessed. This functionality reduces network utilization because application information in the form of JAR files is copied across the network once instead of multiple times. The enabling and disabling of JAR file caching has a significant impact on the network performance of Oracle 11i running as a web application and little effect on Oracle 11i running in a server based computing environment. The average bandwidth increases from 16 Kbps when JAR file caching is enabled to 138 Kbps when JAR file caching is disabled. It is recommended that JAR File caching be enabled, through this should be evaluated with a client’s Oracle subject matter experts to confirm this is desirable for the deployed module.


Custom Oracle 11i Scripts This section details the custom scripts developed for the Oracle 11i bandwidth analysis initiative. The same scripts were developed for the application scalability initiative and were created to simulate typical tasks performed daily by Oracle 11i users. The functional script selected for bandwidth testing was the AR Customer & Invoice to GL functional process flow, as it was one of the most robust. The following sections detail the requirements, assumptions and the process flow of each script.

Requirements and Assumptions The purpose of this section is to identify the functional requirements and assumptions used to develop and execute the Oracle 11i Financials application (specifically the Accounts Receivable module) bandwidth tests. The following requirements must be met by the Oracle 11i Scripts:

• The AR Customer & Invoice to GL scripts simulates Standard Users.

• Oracle 11i simulation includes the normal task of adding a database entry, posting entry to the General Ledger (GL) and running a Summary Report.

• Initialization procedure is excluded from load analysis.

The following lists the assumptions identified by Citrix consulting during the initial phase of the engagement:

• The AR Customer & Invoice to GL script reflects the typical usage pattern and resource utilization of the rest of Oracle 11i modules.

• User variance is based on the speed that they use the application and not the tasks that they execute.

• The scripts do not simulate printing or file copying.

• The user accounts are configured correctly.

• The Oracle 11i and MetaFrame XP servers are optimally configured for the environment.

Oracle 11i - AR Customer & Invoice to GL Script The objective of this script is to simulate the usage pattern of a typical Oracle 11i user while maintaining the requirements and assumptions outlined in the previous section. The script followed the same steps as the LoadRunner scalability script that was used for the Oracle 11i scalability testing. Unlike the scalability test, the script used for the bandwidth test was executed manually by a user running the ICA Client. The manual user interaction was preferred to automating the user load because a real user executing the script allowed the test team to evaluate network performance from the standpoint of an end user. Additionally, manually executing the script for all of the numerous concurrent user sessions that were required for the scalability test would have added an additional layer of complexity to the testing procedure. With the bandwidth test, the network data was gathered while only one concurrent user was connected to the MetaFrame XP server. The individual steps that are conducted each time the script is executed are depicted in the following diagram:


(8)Complete the Invoice

(9)Open the Receipt entry

form

(10)Receipt Header Data

(11)Apply the Receipt Amount

(12)Run General Ledger

Interface

(3)Open the New Customer

Entry Form

(4)Enter Classification Data

(5)Open Transaction Entry

Form

(6)Enter Header Information

(7)Enter Line Information

(13)Switch Responsibility to the

GL

(14)Post the Journal Entries

(15)Switch Responsibility back

to Account Receivables

(16)Run the Journal Entries

Report

(1)Launch ICA Session

(2)Login and Launch Accounts

Receivable Module

(17)End Connection to the

MetaFrame Server

1. The user launches an ICA session using a predetermined ID ranging. The published Oracle JInitiator application is launched and the user is authenticated to the Windows Active Directory.

2. Once the Oracle JInitiator application starts, the login window is displayed. The user is logged into the Oracle application. After Oracle authentication, the Oracle 11i portal window is displayed and user clicks on Receivables, Vision Operations (USA).

3. The user navigates the functions menu to Customer, selects Standard, enters a unique customer name, and generates a new customer by clicking the “New” button.

4. The new Customer window is displayed and the user classifies the customer as a High Technology customer. The user will also assign the cusotmer an address for both billing and shipping.

5. The user exits the Customer function and navigates to the Transactions function.

6. The transaction is classified as “Manual” and a newly created Customer is assigned to that transaction.

7. The user clicks the line item button to enter transaction detail information. The line item information is then entered and saved. The window is closed and the transaction number that was automatically generated is copied to the clipboard.


8. The Complete button is clicked on to complete the invoice.

9. The user navigates to the Receipts function.

10. A random receipt number is entered. The receipt amount and payment method are entered and the transaction number is pasted from the clipboard to associate the receipt to the previously created transaction.

11. The Applications button is clicked, which subsequently applies the amount of the receipt to the invoice.

12. The user navigates to the General Ledger function and enters a start date to run the GL and clicks the Submit button. The user then refreshes the request list until it has been completed.

13. The user switches responsibilities to General Ledger, Vision Operations (USA).

14. After the switch, the user navigates to Journals/Post and posts the previous receivables batch.

15. When the batch is posted, the user switches responsibilities back to Receivables, Vision Operations (USA).

16. The user submits a new request for “Journal Entries Report” and searches for the report request. The data is refreshed until the request is completed. After the request is completed, the user views the output (report). The report and the Requests window are closed.

17. The user closes the Oracle JInitiator application and logs out of the system.


Environment Architecture This section describes the test environment and configuration of the hardware and software used to conduct the Oracle 11i bandwidth tests. It also provides an overview of the interaction between the components in the MetaFrame XP bandwidth testing environment.

To determine the bandwidth requirements of ICA and help provide a general network guideline for ICA client deployment, Citrix consulting examined the network utilization of users exercising Oracle through a MetaFrame XP server. It was unnecessary to have the users repeat their tasks on both the desktop version of Oracle and the MetaFrame XP deployed Oracle application because the network analysis that was performed was able to simultaneously monitor the Oracle traffic and ICA traffic originating from the MetaFrame XP server. Because the actual Oracle client is running on the MetaFrame XP server exactly as it would from the desktop, the Oracle traffic generated is identical to the desktop traffic, performing the same task. Using this approach ensures that the network analysis of ICA is closely linked to the actual Oracle activities, thereby ensuring an accurate comparison of ICA to Oracle traffic. To enable this configuration, the environment required the presence of one MetaFrame XP server, an ICA Client, and the various components of the Oracle architecture. A Compaq Evo T20 Windows CE thin client device running the WinCE ICA Client version 6.20 was used to establish a connection to the servers detailed in the following section to conduct the bandwidth testing:

MetaFrame XP ServerZone Data CollectorAccess Data Store

CCSLABS32

Oracle 11i Web ServerCCSLABS50

Oracle 11i Forms ServerCCSLABS48

Oracle 11i Database ServerOracle Concurrent Processing Server

Oracle Administration ServerCCSLABS66

Citrix Test Farm - Zone 1


Citrix MetaFrame XP Presentation Server Citrix MetaFrame XP Presentation Server is the world’s most widely deployed presentation server for centrally managing heterogeneous applications and delivering their functionality as a service to workers, wherever they may be and to a variety of client devices. Because the ICA protocol, which enables this application access, supports all types of hardware, operating platforms, network connections, and network protocols, it lets organizations deliver a common set of applications to different types of client devices and to users in separate locations with better performance than alternative technologies.

Citrix MetaFrame XP servers are organized at the highest level into server farms. A MetaFrame XP server farm is a group of MetaFrame XP servers managed as a single entity with Citrix’s Independent Management Architecture (IMA) components. Servers in such a farm share some form of physical connection and a single IMA-based data store. The data store is used to centralize configuration information for a server farm in one location. The data store maintains information about the servers, applications, and MetaFrame XP administrators in the server farm. Servers in a MetaFrame XP server farm are also further organized into zones. A zone is a logical grouping of MetaFrame XP servers intended to enhance the performance of MetaFrame XP by allowing geographically related servers to be grouped together. Each zone within a server farm has one server that is designated as a zone data collector. A zone data collector stores information about the servers and published applications in the farm from each server within its zone and all other zone data collectors. This information is in turn used to dynamically load balance users to the least-busy server when connecting to a MetaFrame XP server farm.

For testing purposes, the MetaFrame XP environment was composed of one server with a local Microsoft Access database acting as the data store. This server was also acting as the zone data collector.

Oracle Secondary and Tertiary Tiers The test environment utilized three physical servers to run the backend components of the Oracle environment, which can be broken down into the following five logical server functions:

• Oracle Web Server – The Oracle Web Server provides connectivity for the Oracle backend through a web interface called JInitiator. For this test, the Oracle system is accessed with a web client via Internet Explorer 6 hosted on the MetaFrame XP server. This server runs Oracle 9iAS Apache Web Server.

• Oracle Forms Server – The Oracle 11i application server that generates Oracle forms.

• Oracle Database Server – The Oracle RDBMS 8.1.7.3.10 Database Server runs the backend database that supports the Oracle 11i application and contains all company-specific data as well as metadata that supports the application.

• Oracle Concurrent Processing Server – The Oracle Concurrent Processing Server provides the batch processing component that generates reports as well as runs data processing transactions, both scheduled and immediate.

• Oracle Administration Server – The Oracle Administration Server provides access to the administrative settings for Oracle 11i.

In order to split the major processing components, the Oracle environment was broken down into three pieces:

• One server acting as a web server

• A second server acting as a forms server

• A third and more powerful server acting as a database, concurrent processing and administration server


Hardware Specifications The following table outlines the hardware specification for the MetaFrame servers that were tested during the MetaFrame XP bandwidth testing initiative.

Server CCSLABS32

Purpose MetaFrame XP server

Vendor Compaq

Server Model Proliant DL360 G2

Processor Type 1.4 GHz

Number of Processors 2

RAM 2 GB

Partition Size c: 16.9 GB

NIC Vendor Compaq NC7780 Gigabit Server Adapter

NIC Speed Auto Detect

The following table outlines the hardware specifications and functionality of the remainder of servers in the environment:

Server CCSLABS50 CCSLABS48 CCSLABS66

Purpose Oracle Web server Oracle Forms server

Oracle Database server

Vendor Compaq Compaq Compaq

Server Model Proliant DL360 G2 Proliant DL360 G2 Proliant DL580

Processor Type 1.4 GHz 1.4 GHz 700 MHz

Number of Processors

2 2 4

RAM 2 GB 2 GB 2 GB

Partition Size C: 4 GB 4 GB 50 GB

Partition Size D: 12.9 GB 12.9 GB -

NIC Vendor Compaq NC7780 Gigabit Server Adapter

Compaq NC7780 Gigabit Server Adapter

Compaq NC3134 Fast Ethernet NIC

NIC Speed Auto Detect Auto Detect Auto Detect


Software and Platform Specifications The following table outlines the software configuration for each component used during the bandwidth testing effort:

Component Software

MetaFrame XP Server Windows 2000 SP2

MetaFrame XP Presentation Server, Enterprise Edition with Feature Release 2

Internet Explorer 6.0.2600

Jinitiator 1.1.8.19

EEye Iris Network Traffic Analyzer

Post-SP2 Hotfixes:

Q147222

Q313450

Q319733

Q295688

Q313582

Q320176

Q299956

Q313829

Q320206

Q300845

Q314147

Q321599

Q311967

Q318138

SP2 SRP1

Oracle Servers Windows 2000 SP2

Oracle RDBMS 8.1.7.3.10 (database server only)

TAR 1.11.2a (database server only)

GZIP 1.2.4 (database server only)

Oracle 9iAS Apache Web Server (web server only)

Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 SP4

MKS Toolkit for Developers version 8.1


GNU Makeup 3.79.1

Sun Java Development Kit (JDK) 1.3.1_04

Adobe Acrobat Reader

WinZip

Citrix MetaFrame XP Presentation Server Configuration This section details the steps required to stage the MetaFrame XP servers in preparation for the bandwidth test. Because of the limited size needed for this particular test environment, a single MetaFrame XP farm with one MetaFrame XP server in a single zone was created. The Citrix XML service was configured to use port 80. In order to ensure consistent test results the following ICA connection configuration settings were configured and validated on the MetaFrame XP servers.

Advanced Settings

• Timeout Setting for Connection = No Timeout

• Timeout Setting for Disconnection = No Timeout

• Timeout Setting for Idle = No Timeout

• Required Encryption = Basic

• AutoLogon = Inherit User Configuration

• Prompt for Password = No

• Initial Program = Inherit Client/User Configuration

• Only Run Published Apps = Not Selected

• User Profile Overrides = Not Selected

• On a broken or timed out connection = Reset

• Reconnect sessions disconnected = Inherit User Configuration

• Shadowing = Inherit User Configuration

ICA Client Settings

• Client Audio Quality = Medium

Client Settings

• Connect Client Drives at Logon = Inherit User Configuration

• Connect Client Printers at Logon = Inherit User Configuration

• Default to Main Client Printer = Inherit User Configuration

• Disable Client Drive Mapping = Selected

• Disable Windows Client Printer Mapping = Selected


• Disable Client LPT Port Mapping = Selected

• Disable Client COM Port Mapping = Selected

• Disable Client Clipboard Mapping = Not Selected

• Disable Client Audio Mapping = Selected

Internet Explorer 6.0 Configuration Internet Explorer 6.0 is the web browser that was used to access the Oracle JInitiator application. Custom configurations were validated before the test was executed. An administrator completed the following configurations before the bandwidth tests were executed.

• Added the Oracle 11i portal to the trusted sites list.

• Enabled the following items from the security settings for the trusted sites to include:

o Download Signed ActiveX controls

o Download unsigned ActiveX controls

o Initialize and Script ActiveX controls not marked as safe

Note: The remaining items retained the default values for the Low security settings.

• Navigated to the Oracle 11i Portal and installed JInitiator accepting default settings.

• Published JInitiator in the MetaFrame XP server


Results and Analysis One critical factor that will affect the amount of bandwidth consumed by Oracle 11i is the presence or absence of JAR file caching. The first time that a web browser connects to the Oracle web server, the application will cache JAR files in a location on the network as specified by settings within the Oracle JInitiator Control Panel. For analysis purposes, the bandwidth utilization was examined for two scenarios: with JAR file caching enabled and with JAR file caching disabled.

When presenting and analyzing the bandwidth data, the network traffic in a typical web application environment will be labeled as “Oracle” traffic and the network traffic for the MetaFrame XP environment will be labeled as “ICA” traffic. The MetaFrame XP server will be the reference point for determining whether traffic is outbound or inbound, meaning that outbound ICA statistics refer to network communication that originates from the MetaFrame server and is sent to the ICA Client while outbound Oracle statistics refer to network communication that originates from the MetaFrame XP server and is sent to the Oracle Web and Forms servers.

JAR File Caching Enabled JAR file caching will occur the first time that a web browser connects to an Oracle E-Business Suite application. Once the browser is closed the cache is cleared and caching will reoccur the next time the browser connects to the application. This is the most common configuration because JAR caching will limit the amount of bandwidth and will increase application response time by avoiding redundant copying of the same file multiple times to and from the same location. The first set of bandwidth data was gathered with the default configuration of having JAR file caching enabled. The following graph charts the bandwidth consumed by Oracle and the bandwidth consumed by ICA traffic against time with JAR file caching enabled:

Oracle vs. ICA Bandwidth Utilization (Caching Enabled)

0.00

100.00

200.00

300.00

400.00

500.00

600.00

700.00

Time

Kbp

s Oracle

ICA


For the majority of the time, the bandwidth consumed by the Oracle application is less than the bandwidth consumed by the ICA connection. However, the spikes in bandwidth utilization are much higher and occur at a greater frequency for the Oracle application. The spikes in the Oracle graph demonstrate the burden the network takes when requests to the backend Oracle components are executed. At the same times that the network bursts occur, ICA traffic remains at a fairly constant level.

The phenomena of network bursts with Oracle bandwidth and not with ICA bandwidth can be explained by reviewing the behavior of the two computing architectures. The majority of ICA traffic will be keyboard and mouse information from the ICA Client to the MetaFrame XP server and video information form the MetaFrame XP server to the ICA Client. As functionality such as printing and client drive mapping is introduced to the environment, the network communication becomes more complex, but for the purposes of this testing the original statement will hold true. For the bandwidth testing, keystroke and mouse movements were commonly occurring during the execution of the manual script, which resulted in consistent and constant low bandwidth utilization for the ICA connection regardless of what processing was being conducted by the MetaFrame XP server.

On the other hand, no communication is necessary between the MetaFrame XP server and the Oracle backend components during periods of mouse and keystrokes movements. However, once a request is made to the Oracle Forms or Web server, the information must be passed to the MetaFrame XP server. During the test cycles, this communication was significantly larger than the bandwidth consistently required for ICA traffic.

JAR File Caching Disabled In certain scenarios, organizations may want to disable JAR file caching. By disabling the setting, the bandwidth consumption on the network will increase because each time a Java applet is utilized the associated JAR files will be transferred from the Oracle Web Server to the device running the web browser. The disabling of the JAR file caching has a significant effect on bandwidth utilization. The second round of testing was performed with JAR file caching disabled to determine these effects. The following graph charts the bandwidth consumed by Oracle and the bandwidth consumed by ICA traffic against time for the tests that were conducted with JAR file caching disabled:

Oracle vs. ICA Bandwidth Utilization (Caching Disabled)

0.00

100.00

200.00

300.00

400.00

500.00

600.00

700.00

800.00

900.00

1000.00

Time

Kbp

s OracleICA


The same network spiking behavior in the Oracle client that was exhibited while JAR file caching was enabled is seen to a much greater extent when JAR file caching is disabled. With caching enabled, the largest spike was less than 700 Kbps while the largest spike with caching disabled was over 13,000 Kbps (the y-axis on the chart above does not display the maximum network spike for legibility purposes). The ICA traffic bandwidth utilization when the cache is disabled is almost identical to when the cache is enabled. The disabling of JAR file caching does not have an effect on ICA traffic because the caching takes place between the Oracle web server and the MetaFrame XP server or the local network file server.


Conclusions The purpose of this testing was to compare the bandwidth utilization of the Oracle 11i application running as a standard web application against the Oracle 11i application running in a server based computing environment. The enabling and disabling of JAR file caching alters the manner in which the network is utilized. Therefore, testing was performed with and without caching enabled to provide a range of Oracle 11i configurations for analysis.

The following chart details the bandwidth data with JAR file caching enabled. All data is in kilobytes (Kbps):

Outbound

Oracle Inbound Oracle

Total Oracle

Outbound ICA

Inbound ICA

Total ICA

Sum 776.21 4999.77 5775.98 5386.61 2791.98 8178.59

Median 0.00 0.00 0.00 8.25 5.41 16.69

Average 2.18 14.04 16.22 14.92 7.73 22.66

Standard Deviation 10.29 53.38 58.84 30.47 7.56 34.55

Maximum 169.80 621.76 640.74 494.07 79.65 528.37

With caching enabled, Oracle 11i is very bandwidth efficient to the point where the average bandwidth is actually less than that of the ICA traffic. However, further research into the statistical data confirms what was displayed in the graphs presented in the Results section; that the Oracle bandwidth is subject to spikes in network activity. This is represented by the very large Standard Deviation and Maximum values and very low Median value for Total Oracle traffic.

The large spikes in network utilization occur when requests are made to the backend components of the Oracle architecture. This is when network availability is most desired by the end user because it is during this period that the user must wait for a response from the application. ICA traffic provides for a more consistent bandwidth utilization, which is the preferred architecture over WAN links so that the network pipe is not saturated with network bursts.

The following chart details the bandwidth data with JAR file caching disabled. All data is in kilobytes (Kbps):

Outbound

Oracle Inbound Oracle

Total Oracle

Outbound ICA

Inbound ICA

Total ICA

Sum 1597.76 47477.23 49074.98 5623.99 2983.07 8607.06

Median 0.42 0.00 0.42 8.84 6.80 17.76

Average 4.49 133.36 137.85 15.54 8.24 23.78

Standard Deviation 23.61 1034.65 1056.38 29.49 7.04 32.75

Maximum 265.36 13106.66 13372.02 466.51 68.70 493.04

With caching disabled, the Oracle network utilization increases in every statistical category while the ICA traffic follows the same network utilization trends.


Appendix A: EEye Iris Sniffer The EEye Iris sniffer software was configured to capture and log all network packets Inbound and Outbound for the MetaFrame Server. The log files consisted of line entries recording the details for up to 2000 packets. Once the buffer size had been exceeded, Iris would continue to write out all capture details to a different log file. The naming conventions for these files display the file date and capture time (e.g. “capture_Wed_Apr_04_08_55_41_2001.txt”). Inside each file, the EEye Iris log file contains 9 columns of data:

• No. Id – number 0-2000

• Timestamp – Time the packet was captured, in milliseconds

• Type – Basic type of traffic, usually IP

• Protocol – Protocol type of the captured packet. ICA is identified as TCP->ICA

• IP_Src – The IP address of the network host that originated the packet

• IP_Dest – The IP address of the network host that is the packet’s destination

• IPort_Src – The Port on the network host that originated the packet

• Port_Dest – The Port on the network host that is the packet’s destination

• Size – The total size of the captured packet, in bytes

The following example displays the actual layout of the log files: No Timestamp Type Protocol IP_src IP_dest Port_src Port_dest Size 0 8:34:36:187 IP TCP->LANSOURCE XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX 1494 1485 336 1 8:34:36:203 IP TCP XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX --- --- 74 2 8:34:36:218 IP TCP XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX 1494 1199 196 3 8:34:36:234 IP TCP XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX 1199 1494 354


Appendix B: MS SQL Analysis Once the Iris data was captured into a text format, the information needed to be imported into database format for analysis purposes. To accomplish this task, a set of stored procedures was created so that the process of organizing and importing the data into a SQL database could be automated. Upon execution of the stored procedures the following data summarization tables existed in the SQL database.

Table Name Description

bwTimeTable Used to summarize log file data at the second level. Contains one column of data, the time in seconds from 7:00:00 to 19:33:25. This table must cover every second interval during which bandwidth was captured.

bwSecondsTable Used to standardize log file data to the same time interval, starting with 1 second. Contains two columns of data, an integer version of seconds used as an ID value from 1 to 945, and a char version of seconds used for comparison purposes to time values stored in char format from “001” to “945”.

bwTestSummary Stores summarized data calculated for each test iteration from the Data tables.

bwTestSecSummary Data is read from all Data tables, standardized to the second level starting at 1 second, and then stored in this table as a summary. The table contains one column of bandwidth data for each test iteration.

bwTestSecSummaryAvg A 15-second moving average is created from the data in bwTestSecSummary table and stored in this table.

bwFCtoWebData1

bwFCtoWebData2

bwFCtoFormsData1

bwFCtoFormsData2

These Data tables stored raw Iris log file data for test runs without caching (Data1 tables) and with caching (Data2 table) between a full client JInitiator session and the Oracle web server (bwFCtoWebData tables) and between a full client JInitiator session and the Oracle forms server (bwFCtoFormsData tables).

NOTE: This data was captured to verify that the data between a MetaFrame server and the Oracle back-end matched the data between a full client non-MetaFrame JInitiator install and the Oracle back-end.

bwTCtoMFData1

bwTCtoMFData2

These Data tables stored raw Iris log file data for test runs without caching (Data1 tables) and with caching (Data2 table) between an ICA client session and the MetaFrame server.

bwMFtoWebData1

bwMFtoWebData2

bwMFtoFormsData1

bwMFtoFormsData2

These Data tables stored raw Iris log file data for test runs without caching (Data1 tables) and with caching (Data2 table) between a MetaFrame server and the Oracle web server (bwMFtoWebData tables) and between a MetaFrame server and the Oracle forms server (bwMFtoFormsData tables).

NOTE: This data was used for analysis of what data is transferred typically between a full client session and the Oracle back-end.


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