Hotsos Symposium 2011 Speaker Spotlight - Friedrich Pfeiffer

Presentation Title: How (Not) to Do a Hardware Sizing for a Large Oracle Data Warehouse

Presentation Abstract: The implementation of large piece of new software, for example a data warehouse, often requires new, probably quite expensive hardware.

How to choose the right hardware to fulfill performance requirements? How many CPUs, which architecture, which storage ...? Simple questions, not so simple answers! Hardware vendors might happily sell you their biggest boxes. Software vendors might offer you a bunch of expensive "performance" options. However, neither might give you a guarantee for keeping the time window — at least at a stage of expansion below maximum. Do you know at all, how "performance" exactly is defined in the context of the new application?

At best, non-appropriate hardware is "only" oversized and eating up your budget. At worst, mandatory business or legal requirements cannot be fulfilled, resulting in project failure and serious trouble for the organization.

In our experience, a benchmark test adequately modeling production is the most cost-, time- and nerve-saving way to size and validate hardware. Anything else is almost a guarantee for trouble, desperate cries for "tuning", escalation meetings, budget overrun, and serious project delay.

The presentation summarizes our - good, bad and ugly - experiences with hardware sizing and benchmark tests done for large commercial banks in Europe and Asia in an Oracle-based data warehouse context. The focus is on how to design and execute the most efficient tests, which can give sufficient certainty in hardware selection for CIOs, project managers, and IT departments. Common sense and Method R are used, of course.

Biography:Since 2007, Dr. Pfeiffer has worked as an Oracle database specialist in software development for Fernbach-Software S.A., a mid-sized but globally operating firm, creating software for banks. Prior to that, Frederich worked in a similar role for Infor Global solutions, the world's third largest ERP software company. He has 20 years experience with relational databases, especially in performance optimization for Oracle 7.3-11.2, MS SQL Server 7-2008, and IBM DB/2 for iSeries (AS400).

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