Customer and/or End Users
The customer is a leading provider of business intelligence and custom database systems, with several Fortune 500 clients.
The Challenge
The company managed a very large number of databases used for mission critical tasks, run with sophisticated data manipulation algorithms. The scale of operations necessitated the utilization of several database server farms. The entire set up was so huge that it became almost impossible to gather performance data from each database server within a viable timeframe. For this reason, the growth velocity of the business was slowing down, and management needed a solution that would accomplish the collection of performance data at one place, and in the minimum possible time.
The Solution
After studying the client's existing set up, PM AM proposed a Database Farm Dashboard as a user interface, backed up a communication tool to each database in operation. The idea was that the system would communicate periodically with every database among the very large volume of database farms in operation, and collect data from its performance log file. This data would then be aggregated, analyzed and displayed in a series of meters showing mission-critical performance parameters. Thus, with the minimum intervention and elapsed time, performance monitoring of the entire set of database server farms could be accomplished.
Technology
Java, Web Services support through GLUE technology, Oracle database, Microsoft SQL server 2000
Resulting Benefits
The most significant gain to the organization was the implementation of what was rapidly shaping up to be an impossible task-in a timely and ongoing manner. This proved to be an efficient and simple way to gather and evaluate database server performance data. As the dashboard now appeared on the concerned personnel's desktops, showing current and actionable performance metrics, this led to easier maintenance of the company's database servers.