Best Practices for Managing Siebel Application Performance Keri McClellan, Sabre Holdings
Table of Contents Session Objectives Introduction Siebel Deployment @ Sabre Holdings Performance Experience Guiding Principles Let s Talk Nitty Gritty Q&A
Session Objectives: Provide specifics of how Sabre manages application performance Describe some of the application performance issues Sabre has experienced Discuss the role of Siebel and their partners in Sabre's application success Open discussion among session attendees about their personal application performance experiences
Table of Contents Session Objectives Introduction Siebel Deployment @ Sabre Holdings Performance Experience Guiding Principles Let s Talk Nitty Gritty Q&A
About Sabre Holdings (TSG) 9000 employees in 45 countries Headquarters Southlake, Texas 2006 revenue - $2.8 billion Sabre is committed to connecting people with the world's greatest travel possibilities Supports travelers, travel agents, corporations, and travel suppliers with products from our three major lines of business Sabre Travel Network Sabre Airline Solutions Travelocity
About Sabre Holdings (TSG)
Table of Contents Session Objectives Introduction Siebel Deployment @ Sabre Holdings Performance Experience Guiding Principles Let s Talk Nitty Gritty Q&A
Two Siebel Deployments icrm: Overview Internal CRM Go Live Date = November, 2002 12 months from RFP to Go Live 1500 users B2B service model supporting Travel Agency customers and Airline customers Broad use of Siebel functionality» (con t on next slide)
Two Siebel Deployments icrm: Implemented Modules Call Center Contracts Marketing Campaigns email Marketing Analytics Partner portal eservice Disconnected client SAP Connector
Two Siebel Deployments IMS: Overview Incident Management System Go Live Date March, 2005 90 days from contract signing to Go Live 1500 users B2C service model supporting Travelocity end users, i.e. travelers Narrowly configured Call Center functionality Only 20 views of the data
Table of Contents Session Objectives Introduction Siebel Deployment @ Sabre Holdings Performance Experience Guiding Principles Let s Talk Nitty Gritty Q&A
Performance Experience Problem Definition Intermittent slow performance Dropped connections Hanging/Freezing user interface Long running queries Kitchen sink of complaints
Performance Experience How long has the problem existed? Began occurring about 6 months after go live Production support team spent many months attempting to address the problems Problem was not well defined Problems were reported inconsistently and incompletely Limited production support resources available After the 5 th Release, and deployment to over 1,200 users, the problem seemed to be amplified and was escalated
Table of Contents Session Objectives Introduction Siebel Deployment @ Sabre Holdings Performance Experience Guiding Principles Let s Talk Nitty Gritty Q&A
Comprehensive Resolution Plan Strategy Task Force: Sabre, Siebel, and partner resources Shared ownership Governance Strong CxO-level support and participation User Involvement Process Measure and report application performance Technology Hardware, Infrastructure and Software changes implemented
Table of Contents Session Objectives Introduction Siebel Deployment @ Sabre Holdings Performance Experience Guiding Principles Let s Talk Nitty Gritty Q&A
User Desktop Environment Standard desktop configuration Instruct users to limit their IE personalization Desktop Utility provided by Siebel Tech Support Developed desktop scripts that control the settings for the desktop Script is pushed to all Siebel users upon start up
Infrastructure Changes Reinstallation / Re-architecture of application layer Moved the gateway server File system moved to a SAN Complete reinstallation of the application servers Re-architected the web server layer Network Eliminated the firewall between web and application servers Upgraded the network between headquarters and data center
Hardware Upgrades Installed 2 new Siebel application servers Installed 2 new dedicated web servers and migrated the application off of shared web servers Upgraded the database server from a 4 CPU shared server to an 8 CPU server that is dedicated to icrm
Application Changes Conducted multiple Expert Services reviews Implemented over 50 Siebel recommendations Many scripting changes Code corrections/improvements Application fixes Reduced crashes from 15-20 per week to 1-2 per week Configured additional tools for monitoring key application performance metrics BMC Patrol Suite
Application Upgrade Upgrade from Siebel 7.5 to Siebel 7.7 Eliminate the Resonate load balancer Change from Oracle Rule-Based Optimizer to Cost-Based Experienced growing pains with cost based optimization Day to day application queries were severely impacted Resources spent several months tuning the most common queries Upgrade Oracle from 8i to 9i
Query-Specific Changes Re-Engineered user query capabilities Issues with automatic trailing wildcards Many common queries were optimized and created as public queries Re-trained users about query techniques to optimize ad hoc querying Leveraged Oracle Profiler on the database to cancel queries running longer than 4 minutes Implemented Cancel-Query button for the users
Governance Changes Established a Production Scorecard Reporting on unplanned outages Number of crashes in the Siebel log files CPU and memory utilization on the servers Network latency and response time Number of user reported performance issues Scorecard goals Determine stability of production environment Report performance to Sr. Mgmt
Production Support Changes Implemented Siebel for icrm team Manage activities, service requests and change requests Use icrm to manage SLA s with customers Allows proactive management of the application Created load and performance testing processes for all future releases Leverage Mercury tools Focus on Usability Improvements for high-volume user groups to drive user efficiency Conducted Siebel End User Diagnostic
Partnership with Siebel Red Account Status Several months before downgraded Delivered on their Follow the Sun approach to support Received onsite TAM support Able to rapidly engage expert services Code review Database optimization Performance and capacity planning
Future Direction Email Response Upgrade to Siebel v8 CTI Improvements Chat capabilities Improved diagnostics and reporting Unicode conversion
Table of Contents Session Objectives Introduction Siebel Deployment @ Sabre Holdings Performance Experience Guiding Principles Let s Talk Nitty Gritty Q&A
Q&A Questions http://oaug.org/conferencesandeducation/conferen ces/2007/collaborate07 Contact information Email: keri.mcclellan@sabre-holdings.com Tel: 682-605-1298