survey: performance mgmt software

From: Lisa Crenshaw <crenl_at_ruby.ils.unc.edu>
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 15:31:30 -0500
Message-ID: <Pine.SO4.4.05.9903181530250.21639-100000@ruby.ils.unc.edu>

Hi all---

I'm surveying database professionals to see who uses software to monitor database performance. If you don't use this type of software, but have an opinion on it, I'd like to hear that too. Please email any responses directly to me. I greatly appreciate your time and comments, and will post a summary of my findings to the group.

Thanks in advance

Lisa Crenshaw Information Science crenl_at_ils.unc.edu
This research study will measure the usage of types of database management tools, and will be used to complete a masters thesis at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Your privacy will be maintained, and no information that will associate you with your responses will be recorded. Your submission of this survey will indicate your willingness to participate in the study. Completion should take about 20 minutes of your time.

If you wish to have a copy of the results of this survey, or have further questions, please contact me, Lisa Crenshaw, at crenl_at_ils.unc.edu or (919)677-8000 x6415 or my faculty advisor, Dr. Stephanie Haas at stephani_at_ils.unc.edu or (919) 962-8360.

You may contact the UNC-CH Academic Affairs Institutional Review Board at the following address and telephone number at any time during this study if you have questions or concerns about your rights as a research participant:

Academic Affairs Institutional Review Board David A. Eckerman, Chair
CB# 4100, 201 Bynum Hall
The Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-4100 (919) 962-7761, or Email: aa-irb_at_unc.edu

Database Performance Monitoring: Use of Software tools and Traditional Processes.

As the database computing environment has become more complex, more tools have evolved for database performance measurement. These tools assist in the prediction, monitoring, and measurement of demand on the database system.

I wish to see if these performance monitoring tools are actually used by database administrators, and why or why not. Following are questions designed to measure the use of database performance management tools.

I have created categories of tools and processes used to measure the performance of a database. They may be purchased programs/software, homegrown programs and scripts, or information gathered by the DBA through whatever means on a regular basis. These categories are not all inclusive-- some tools and certainly many processes exist that perform other necessary functions.

How many years and/or months have you performed the following functions of a DBA?

months, years

_____  ______ installations & upgrades,
_____  ______ backup/recovery, 
_____  ______ performance monitoring and tuning, 
_____  ______ physical database design, 
_____  ______ user administration
_____  ______ database applications administration or authoring
_____  ______ capacity planning
_____  ______ new product/ release evaluation

2. How large are the systems you have worked with in the past 5 years?

Please list the number of each element. If you have worked with more than one system in the past 5 years, please fill out a column for each system.

current	other	other
system	system	system
_____	_____	_____	users
_____	_____	_____	software clients
_____	_____	_____	DBMS platforms
_____	_____	_____	Gigabytes of data in database(s)
_____	_____	_____	data stores

Please rate your use of the following kinds of tools. You will see the general category name and description, and examples of tools of this type that have been mentioned in computing magazines and journals.

Please indicate whether you use tools of the given type, or not. If you do use tools of this type, please indicate how often. If you do *not* use tools of this type, please indicate reason(s) why not. If there is a particular tool you have in mind when making your choice, please feel free to list it in the "opinions" box. Also give any opinions you have of tools of this type, or of this categorization.

3. Consoles
Programs that provide information on immediate operation of database in *real time*.

Examples:
Tivoli systems TME 10
Platinum Enterprise Performance Management Suite DB2 performance monitor
Oracle Enterprise Manager
Softtree Technologies' Oracle Monitor Suite Candle OMEGAMON II for DB2

___ Use

please indicate how often
__ Daily
__ Weekly
__ Monthly
__ On redesign
__ When I have time

___ Don't Use

please indicate reason or reasons why not.
__ poor system quality
__ information is unusable
__ information is not useful to me
__ Cost
__ No time (to learn or use system)
__ Unfamiliar with tools of this type

Your opinion of tools of this type (optional):

4. Contextual
While Consoles provide information
about the operating system and the DBMS, Contextual tools should monitor the performance of (or the DBMS's interaction with) other related elements like the network or the web server. Many of the examples listed are tool suites. Tools of this type claim to integrate context management with database performance management.

Examples:
Platinum Wiretap
Patrol KM for Internet Servers
Compuware's EcoTools
Landmark's PerformanceWorks

___ Use

please indicate how often
__ Daily
__ Weekly
__ Monthly
__ On redesign
__ When I have time

___ Don't Use

Your opinion of tools of this type (optional):

5. Predictors
Tools that predict data growth and user demand of system resources.

Examples:
DB2 estimator,
Oracle capacity planner
Oracle tuning pack
BMC Patrol Knowledge Modules

___ Use

please indicate how often
__ Daily
__ Weekly
__ Monthly
__ On redesign
__ When I have time

___ Don't Use

Your opinion of tools of this type (optional):

6. Tweaking
Describes the manpulation of the operating system and hardware to better work with the database.

Examples:
increasing disk space or memory
increase amount of disk space allotted to swapping installing higher throughput network cards.

___ Use

please indicate how often
__ Daily
__ Weekly
__ Monthly
__ On redesign
__ When I have time

___ Don't Use

please indicate reason or reasons why not.
__ Cost
__ No time (to learn or perform work)
__ Insufficient security level
__ Would impact other functions of system negatively

Your opinion of processes of this type (optional):

7. Monitors
Tools that perform an action whenever a condition is met. These tools could trigger an action without human intervention or could notify the DBA.

Examples:
Platinum Database Analyzer (DB2)
Bradmark DBGeneral performance activity monitor Platinum DBVision
Candle OMEGAMON Monitoring Agent for Sybase, Oracle,

Informix, Microsoft SQL Server

___ Use

please indicate how often
__ Daily
__ Weekly
__ Monthly
__ On redesign
__ When I have time

___ Don't Use

please indicate reason or reasons why not.
__ poor software quality
__ results are unusable
__ results are not useful to me
__ Cost
__ No time (to learn or use software)
__ Unfamiliar with tools of this type

Your opinion of tools of this type (optional) :

8. Rewriters
Tools that optimize SQL or indexes to improve performance.

Examples:
BMC Patrol DB-Alter
Sylvain Faust SQL optimizer
PLATINUM Detector (DB2)
PLATINUM Index Expert (DB2)
Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Index Tuning Wizard Teleran System

___ Use

please indicate how often
__ Daily
__ Weekly
__ Monthly
__ On redesign
__ When I have time

___ Don't Use

Your opinion of tools of this type (optional):

9. What other performance management tool(s) are there, and do you use them? Your comments could include names of tools, or other suggestions for categories, like multi-platform or security administration tools.

What do you think of benchmarking? Have you ever used an industry or custom benchmark to evaluate your DBMS? Does the traditional cycle of benchmark-> tweak -> benchmark reflect your procedure?
The examples for the above categories were chosen based on descriptions in trade magazines and the software developers' marketing material. If you used any of these tools, how well did they live up to the vendor's description?
Any other comments on performance management tools, or this survey?

Thanks very much for your time. Received on Thu Mar 18 1999 - 14:31:30 CST