Troubleshooting process for performance issues

Even systems that have been highly tuned for best performance occasionally experience performance issues. When you discover an issue, gather information about when and where the performance problem occurs and compare your findings with the performance goals that you have established.


Related topics

Troubleshooting-performance-issues-with-AR-System

Contacting Support

Checks to determine an issue

Check the following points before raising an issue:

  • Check whether all users are experiencing the same performance issue, or if the problem is isolated to a specific user.
  • Check if the users are receiving error messages, and obtain the message number and text. Error messages can help you isolate a problem more quickly. For more information about error messages, see the Working-with-error-messages.
  • Define a performance issue with a AR System application properly. A good definition of the problem can suggest additional diagnostics to enable log analysis, and resolve the issue efficiently.

Troubleshooting process

Use the following process to define the issue with appropriate details:

Step

Task

Description

1

Describe how observed behavior differs from expected behavior.

  • Which symptoms or error messages occur?
  • In what log or user interface do these symptoms occur?
  • What are the steps to duplicate the issue?
  • Capture screenshots of the issue if possible.

2

Describe the scope and impact of the issue.

  • Does the issue affect all applications on the system?
  • Does the issue occur in one environment, or in all of them?
  • Is the issue affecting a production system or a test system?
  • Does the AR System server show high CPU or memory consumption at the time? Does the database server show the same?
  • Does the issue occur only for some users performing the operation?

3

Determine the time and frequency of the issue.

  • When did the issue first appear? What changes occurred around that time?
  • Was performance degradation gradual or sudden?
  • How frequently does the issue occur? Is it constant, periodic, or intermittent?

4

Additional questions you might ask include:

  • Is the performance slow only when logging in to the AR System server?
  • Does the problem occur only when submitting a AR System request or also when modifying a request or searching for data in the database?
  • Is there a specific time of day when the server responds slowly or experiences this specific performance problem?
  • What non-AR System applications were running on the client or server when the problem occurred?
  • What Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) number is displayed if time outs are occurring?

5

Check configuration records

Check your system configuration records to know where the problem might originate.

6

Define the troubleshooting strategy

Answers to the preceding questions will help you define your troubleshooting strategy.

As you make changes to improve performance, document the adjustments you make and their reasons. This will help you to keep a record of your progress.

Make only one change at a time to determine what changes are effective.

7

Gather data

Gather baseline performance data. When a performance problem arises, you can gather data on similar operations and compare it with the baseline data. This can help you identify what operations cause the performance problem.

8

Check your environment configuration

Follow the recommendations in Troubleshooting-AR-System-configuration-issues.

9

Analyze the logs

10

Review the other performance troubleshooting topics

11

Create a support case

If you still need help to troubleshoot the performance issues, follow the steps to create a support case:

  1. Collect and send the information gathered in the preceding steps and make sure that you:
    • Include any answers
    • Include any screenshots from the preceding steps

  2. At a minimum, provide the following information as part of your case:

    • Users who experienced the problem
    • Approximate timestamp when the issue was noticed
    • Any specific actions that led to the performance problem if it is identified
    • Any recent changes to the application, database, or other components of the your environment
  3. Attach any materials or reports provided by the Database Administrator:
    • Explain or Execution Plans
    • Automatic Workload Repository (AWR), Active Session History (ASH), and/or
      Automatic Database Diagnostic Monitor (ADDM) reports (Oracle).