Let's talk Finance and Technology

Medivation(MDVN) - Red hot Biotech

2016-04-13T23:40:00.000-04:00

By this time, it is a stale news that MDVN rocketed higher and it is becoming a takeover target.

Bloomberg reported that Sanofi is interested in buying MDVN for an undisclosed price/share for synergies.

There is a interesting OPTION activity for the week ending 04/15.

Option volume is pretty volume for MDVN. However, for strike price of $43 and $50, there is a Open Interest in excess of 6000 call options. Looking at options data helps sometimes figure out where there might be some action expected

MDVN close FY2015 at $48.34 and today it closed at $49.37 after a buyout offer. MDVN had a run up to $50 on Apr 07, 2016 as well but failed and gave back all the gains until today.
If it does have a weekly close above $50, the gains are likely to continue.

H2 2016 looks even more interesting for MDVN with expanded label for Xtandi expected in Europe.

As it stands right now, MDVN does look attractive. This is very similar to PCYC, another biotech company, that was acquired for $20 Billion. MDVN's market cap is about $7 billion right now with similar revenue stream to PCYC before it got acquired.

Watching for the weekly close above $50... Stay tuned...

Disclosure: I am long MDVN.

AAPl AAPL AAPL

2013-08-06T10:09:00.000-04:00

For all those apple die hard fans, AAPL is trading near its 200-DMA. This has happened only once in the last 1 year. It tested its 200DMA only once in Dec-2012. It wasn't successful as there was not enough volume.

Now, the optimist scenario. If AAPL succeeds in crossing the 200DMA($473) right now, with good volume(more than 1.5x average volume), this could push apple towards $500.

This will be a significant event for the stock. All the traders and big money managers watch this DMA. Close above this 200DMA would bring in those buyers and would take apple higher in relatively short amount of time.

Oracle Optimizer costing algorithm

2013-08-02T13:48:00.000-04:00

This is my presentation on how Oracle Optimizer comes up a cost of accessing any table or any index.
I have also shown how the cost of any join in computed. I hope this will provide enough information for you to understand the concept and apply it to your problems.

Oracle Costing Algorithm

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.

Peoplesoft Functional indexes

2012-07-04T23:37:00.001-04:00

This is for PeopleSoft experts.

I see a lot of functional indexes in my PeopleSoft database. This is due to the indexes created on date columns as DESC. Because of these functional indexes, full table scan is being preferred by the optimizer.
Is there any way to get around this problem?

Any help is appreciated.

Please leave your answer/comments.

PeopleSoft: Setting up a COBOL trace

2012-07-04T23:37:00.000-04:00

Goal

How to set trace on for Application Engine, Cobol, without setting the trace in the Process Scheduler's psprcs.cfg configuration file.

Solution

For Application Engine programs, Open the Process Definition under PeopleTools, Process Scheduler. Go to the Override tab, and on the Parameter list line select Append from the dropdown, and in the edit box next to it, enter the desired combination of traces, they all are;

Parameter List Append -TRACE 7 -TOOLSTRACEPC 4044 -TOOLSTRACESQL 31

Save the Definition and this program will be traced each time it is run, until this is removed. Using Both the -TOOLSTRACEPC & -TOOLSTRACESQL together should only be done when required, as the output from both go into the same file, making it very large and difficult to read. For normal program tracing using just the;

-TRACE 7 -TOOLSTRACEPC 4044

Give the Application Engine Trace, which traces the SQL in an Application Engine program, and the PeopleSoft Trace, which is the pcode trace.

The above settings have equivalent settings in psprcs.cfg, they are;

TraceAE=    -TRACE  output goes into Application Engine Trace (.AET)
TracePC=    -TOOLSTRACEPC  output goes into the PeopleTools trace file (.trc)
TraceSQL=  -TOOLSTRACESQL output ALSO goes into the PeopleTools trace file (.trc)

Again, depending on what the program is doing, most commonly use the -TRACE & -TOOLSTRACEPC together. The only time I use the -TOOLSTRACESQL is when we're looking for a problem with the psae program itself.

For COBOL the idea is similar, we won't be appending to the parameter list instead we'll be overriding it.  So first step is to open the appropriate  Process Type Definition, example;

Process Type: COBOL SQL
Operating System: NT Server
Database Type: Oracle

Copy the whole parameter list line into you mouse clipboard;

%%DBTYPE%%/%%DBNAME%%/%%OPRID%%/%%OPRPSWD%%/%%RUNCNTLID%%/%%INSTANCE%%//%%DBFLAG%%

Then open the Process Definition for the particular COBOL Process, go to the Override Tab, and on the Parameter list line, select Override from the drop down. Then in the Parameter Edit box, paste the whole parameter list from the Process Definition just retrieved;

%%DBTYPE%%/%%DBNAME%%/%%OPRID%%/%%OPRPSWD%%/%%RUNCNTLID%%/%%INSTANCE%%//%%DBFLAG%%

Notice at the end of the line after the %%INSTANCE%% and before the %%DBFLAGS%% there are 2 forward slashes // Insert the desired bit map number inbetween the slashes. Choose the bitmap number desired for the trace, and put it between the slashes like so;

%%DBTYPE%%/%%DBNAME%%/%%OPRID%%/%%OPRPSWD%%/%%RUNCNTLID%%/%%INSTANCE%%/255/%%DBFLAG%%

Save the Process Definition and launch the COBOL or AE program and Navigate to the Process Monitor, Details, Parameter List, and see the expanded command line with the trace value inserted;

Command Line:
PSRUN PTPDBTST ORACLE/E840D20P/VP1/%OPRPSWD%/1/475/255/%DBFLAG%

With both the AE & Cobol traces done like this, every time the program runs it will be traced. Need to undo all of this setting the override back to None in both Definitions will turn it off.

Peoplesoft Functional indexes

2012-04-04T10:43:00.001-04:00

Load Generators

2012-03-19T14:19:00.000-04:00

Load generators are used to simulate actual users while running the load tests. Load controller contact the load generators and sends the scripts on the load generators to simulate the vusers.

It is very important to have a few load generators to support the load. It is equally important to monitor the load generators during the performance test as it is important to monitor the IT architecture that is being load tested.

In our scenario, the load generators were running out of the Physical memory and hence, the response time was getting impacted. You can configure site scope to monitor all the load generators in load controller itself.

Watch for memory consumption on the load generators to make sure there is enough memory available for the vusers. CPU should not be a concern on these generators since there is no CPU intensive processing on these machines.

Specific question, concern or comment? Please leave a note and I would be glad to respond.

PeopleSoft: Students Transcript Report

2012-03-19T14:11:00.000-04:00

In Campus Solutions module from PeopleSoft applications, students as well as Advisors can run the Transcript report. In our instance, the final step, 'View Report', that triggers the XML publisher was taking close to 30 seconds.

The App server log shows that 20 seconds or more out of total 30 seconds were being spent in converting the RTF template to XSL template. We removed this step by using the XSL template directly.

Results were phenomenal. Our transcript report is now completing in 10 seconds.

Specific questions/comments/concerns? Please leave a comment and I would gladly answer.

PeopleSoft Tuxedo Trace

2012-03-01T09:21:00.003-05:00

Ever wondered how much time each service takes within the Application Server?

Well, there is a way to get that information. Just enable the TUXEDO Service Trace for the duration of the load. Once the trace is turned off, you can use txrpt utility to get the output in a nice format summarized on an hourly basis.

I ran a load test for about 3 hours under Tuxedo Service Trace and here is what I got from txrpt.

SERVICE SUMMARY REPORT

SVCNAME 17p-18p 18p-19p 19p-20p 20p-21p TOTALS
Num/Avg Num/Avg Num/Avg Num/Avg Num/Avg
--------------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------
ICScript 2803/0.13 13708/0.14 12907/0.14 4202/0.14 33620/0.14
ICPanel 1856/2.14 12973/1.83 12511/1.76 3942/1.80 31282/1.82
HomepageT 306/0.06 1183/0.05 1082/0.05 361/0.05 2932/0.05
FileAttach 59/0.02 510/0.02 526/0.02 171/0.02 1266/0.02
PortalRegistry 636/0.03 254/0.03 8/0.02 1/0.02 899/0.03
GetCertificate 206/0.09 105/0.09 6/0.10 214/0.02 531/0.06
KeyStore 4/0.05 0/0.00 0/0.00 0/0.00 4/0.05
PpmMonSvc 4/0.14 0/0.00 0/0.00 0/0.00 4/0.14
GetWebProfile 2/0.41 0/0.00 0/0.00 0/0.00 2/0.41
--------------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------
TOTALS 5876/0.75 28733/0.90 27040/0.88 8891/0.87 70540/0.88

As you can see clearly, ICPanel is the one taking the most time. This information can be used to assign LOAD factor to the above listed services and hence, it helps in LOAD BALANCING the queues to the application server process.

Here is how we enable the tuxedo service trace.

Default Entry in PSAPPSRV.UBX file

#
# PeopleSoft Application Server
#
PSAPPSRV SRVGRP=APPSRV
SRVID=1
MIN={$PSAPPSRV\Min Instances}
MAX={$PSAPPSRV\Max Instances}
RQADDR="APPQ"
REPLYQ=Y

CLOPT="-o \"{REL_LOG}{FS}stdout\" -e \"{REL_LOG}{FS}stderr\" {$PSAPPSRV\Spawn Server} -s@psappsrv.lst -- -D {$Domain Settings\Domain ID} -S PS
APPSRV"

Modified Entry in PSAPPSRV.UBX file

#
# PeopleSoft Application Server
#
PSAPPSRV SRVGRP=APPSRV
SRVID=1
MIN={$PSAPPSRV\Min Instances}
MAX={$PSAPPSRV\Max Instances}
RQADDR="APPQ"
REPLYQ=Y

CLOPT="-r -o \"{REL_LOG}{FS}stdout\" -e \"{REL_LOG}{FS}stderr\" {$PSAPPSRV\Spawn Server} -s@psappsrv.lst -- -D {$Domain Settings\Domain ID} -S PS
APPSRV"

The only addition is "-r" . This flag will turn on the tuxedo service trace and can provide a great deal of information.

Have any specific questions? Please leave a comment and I would be glad to answer that.

Why is my query not using parallel slaves?

2012-01-11T09:03:00.000-05:00

Oracle support parallel query for DML statements that include INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE statements. This is a great way to speed up these DML statements when you are trying to process those millions or records.

Not a big deal! you already knew about it. Infact, you have used parallel query on your DML statements. Have you ever been in a situation when your parallel DML that used to complete quickly enough is not completing today?????

To your surprise, it is entirely possible that your Parallel DML is not using parallel slaves because there are some restrictions for using parallel query on DML. Two of the most important ones are below

1) Triggers on the underlying tables. If the table used in your DML statement has triggers on it, it cannot use Parallel query
2) Referential integrity constraint: The underlying table, if it has referential integrity constraint, will not be able to use Parallel query.

This is true even if there is sufficient parallel slaves available for your query.

So, next time you run into this situation, you know what to check.

Sell Covered calls and Secured Cash puts

2011-11-23T16:52:00.000-05:00

Here is an excellent way to add some green to your portfolio.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/310015-generating-year-end-income-part-ii-cash-secured-puts

http://seekingalpha.com/article/308612-generating-year-end-income-part-i-covered-calls

Credit Card Offers

2011-11-22T11:38:00.000-05:00

Need everyone to chip in on this lucrative offer. I just found out this new credit card offer from continental.com. It says apply for a new credit card and get 40,000 miles with no fee for the first year.

http://www.continental.com/web/en-US/content/products/chase/continental.aspx?v_ctrk=HBAN2$0-916-2365-1-1348&offer=OPP40K&mkid=6S2B

40,000 miles should be good enough for one-round trip within continental US. Round-trip ticket these days could be worth upto $500.

There could be similar offers out there which are as good as this one if not better.

Could anyone comment on what are downsides of taking this offer and closing the account in less than 1 year to avoid the annual credit card charges?

I would love to hear from your experience on similar offers like this one. So, keep them coming.

Peoplesoft Search Keys

2011-11-18T08:22:00.001-05:00

I have taken a very simple topic today but yet a very important one. Whenever we create any custom objects in Peoplesoft, be mindful of the Keys and Alt Search keys you choose, since every column that has been identified as a key, will end up creating an additional index.

Every index is a lot of overhead on INSERT/UPDATE and DELETE statements. So, choose the KEYS carefully and only what is really needed. I have seen objects with 28 Keys that essentially means an index with 28 columns, which would obviously be no good as an index.

Additionally, every ALT search keys would create additional indexes on that objects. This would be even worse. You will take a big performance hit if you have more indexes than needed.

PeopleSoft ReUse Statement AE

2011-11-15T17:48:00.001-05:00

The ReUse statement setting on an Application Engine is a great way to increase performance. It’s useful when you have a SQL object that is called multiple times, for instance when you have a DoSelect that runs a SQL Step repeatedly, substituting different Bind variables in each time.

The default setting for ReUse is ‘No’, which means that each time the SQL Step is called it is recompiled and new execution plan generated, bad news if the SQL has to run a large number of times. With the default setting of 'No', a new SQL statement is generated which needs to be parsed and stored in 'Shared Pool' for every row that satisfies the DoSelect loop. This is like thrashing the shared pool literally. You should see some 'wait events' on latches in the shared pool that clearly would mean, the performance is getting degraded. If the ReUse setting is ‘Yes’ then any %Binds in the SQL statement are converted into ‘:1’, ‘:2’ etc. This means the statement can just be compiled once and the same plan used each time, resulting in really quite dramatic improvements in processing time.

This is a very simple and low hanging fruit but yet this would result in dramatic performance improvements.

FULL Table Scan(DB file Scattered read) Vs INDEX Scan(DB file sequential read)

2011-11-15T10:11:00.000-05:00

DBAs and Developers often look at FULL Table Scans or INDEX scans happening within their database and code respectively. It is often assumed that FULL Table Scan would make the SQL statement perform slower.

Let us try and clear this misconception.
FULL Table Scan(DB file scattered read) is not necessarily an expensive operation as compared to INDEX scan. It all depends on what the SQL is trying to do. If the SQL statement is returning more than 10% of the total volume in the table, FULL Table Scan is actually faster than Index Scan. This is because an index is scanned one block at a time whereas in-case of FULL Table Scan, multiple blocks, as determined by 'DB_file_multiblock_read_count, are fetched and read into the memory.

In a nutshell, if the SQL statement serves more as a batch query rather than OLTP, FTS(FULL Table Scan) is actually faster than Index read.

The reverse is true in case of Online Transactions because your SQL statement is expected to return only a few rows.

Have a specific case to discuss, please leave a comment or reach me at munish07@gmail.com. I would be glad to answer.

SQL running long?

2011-11-13T13:11:00.001-05:00

If you are an IT person, I am sure you know what I am talking about. You have a SQL statement or a program/job that you run every day and it completes in a few minutes but today it has been running for hours. Nothing has changed as far as you know. It is still supposed to process the similar amount of volume. No change in the code yet the SQL does not seem to be finishing.

The answer is simple. It's execution plan has changed. Your DBA should be able to confirm that or you could check it out yourself provided you know the hashvalue or the SQL_ID of the SQL in question.

Run the below SQL for the sql_id in question. Oracle optimizer generates a plan hash value for every execution plan it generates and executes. If you see different plan hash values for the same SQL hashvalue or SQL_ID, this will confirm that SQL statement plan has changed and hence it is running long.

select
inst_id,sql_id,plan_hash_value,child_number,executions,round(buffer_gets/executions,2)
"buffer_gets/exec" , cpu_time/1000000 "Cpu Time(s)",round(rows_processed/executions,2) "Rows",
elapsed_time/1000000 "Elpased Time(s)" from gv$sql where
sql_id='&sql_id'

Once you know that SQL plan did change, you would obviously want to know, what are the new and the old execution plans.
Run the below SQL Statement from the SQL_ID in question and for each child_cursor taken from above sql.

select * from TABLE(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&SQL_ID',&child_cursor,'PEEKED_BINDS'))

Have a question? Please leave a comment and I would be glad to answer.

Should I buy an Investment Property?

2011-11-12T11:11:00.000-05:00

Real estate does not excite now-a-days as much as it used to do a few years ago. We are hearing about so many under-water mortgages, foreclosures, sub-prime mortgages, etc that they is a huge fear among all of us to even talk about real-estate let alone buy it for an investment.

Mr. Buffet once quoted, 'Be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful'. The more I think about this line, the more I appreciate it. In-fact, I feel it is true in all investment vehicles and at all times.

Let us dig more closely into it.Real-estate always goes through up-down cycle. It simply means when everyone in the office, friends, family, news channel starts talking positive about something, it excites people into it. This creates such an artificial demand that prices start going through the roof. Still, there will be number of people who will profit from such a upswing in a very short amount of time yet no one can predict where we are in the cycle. On the other hand, when everyone in the office, friends, family, news channel starts talking negative about something, it spreads fear among us. Everyone wants to get out of that investment whether that is any stock, or real-estate. This drives down rates much faster. Fear and Greed overpower our thinking process in such times.

If you are thinking about investing your hard-earned money into real-estate but you are fearful, sit back, relax your mind and just think logically. Plan your investment as to when you would need your money. If you are disciplined enough and can wait out the greed or fear cycle, you would definitely get a very good return on your investment. In today's real-estate market, there are tons of properties that you can buy and rent them out for no out-of-pocket expenses. I, myself, am doing that. I bought a foreclosed condo in 2009 and have since been renting it. I am earning close to $800/month(almost $10,000/year) after deducting all my expenses like real-estate tax, condo fees, Landlord insurance, and other expenses. After renting it out for just 1.5 years, I recovered all of my total investment from the rental income itself. If I sell it after say 5 years at the same price that I bought it for, I would have made a handsome return of 20% annually. Keep in mind that my initial investment was only $10,000 to buy this condo plus another $5000 towards closing and fixing some minor things in the house. There is every chance that in the next 5 years, real-estate prices will not only stabilize, but it would start going up.

In a nutshell, when you want to invest any money, don't let fear or greed drive your thinking. Plan your investment strategy well, and stick to it. Learn to profit from others' fears.

Would you like to share your investment experience? I would be happy to post your story on my blog for others to learn from it.

Peoplesoft Architecture

2011-11-07T13:06:00.002-05:00

Let us look at PeopleSoft Architecture in easy to understand terms.

Broadly speaking, PeopleSoft has 5 main components to support it's architecture.
a) Web Server: it is a java-enabled web server to support browser transaction requests and the application messaging technology. It is also a collection of java servlets to handle wide range of PeopleSoft transactions. It is the web server that communicates with the client requests.

b) Application Server: It executes business logic and issues SQL statements to the database. It consists of numerous services and server processes that handle transaction requests. It is also responsible for maintaining persistent connections with the databases. It is fair to say that application server is the heart of PeopleSoft Architecture.

c) Database Server: It houses the database engine and PeopleSoft database. Database server can service many application servers.

d) Batch Server: It is the server where PeopleSoft Process Scheduler is installed and configured. It can be located on the same physical machine as the database server or on a dedicated machine or it can also be co-located with application server.

e) Application Designer: It is an integrated development environment that enables you to work with the numerous definitions of a business application in a single work area. In simpler terms, Application Designer is a tool that enables you to develop custom applications in PeopleSoft.

I can really go in a great detail for each of the above components or the architecture in general but I would love to answer the specific questions you have. Please leave your questions by posting a comment. I would promptly answer and cover them at great length.

How to cut your Debt?

2011-10-18T12:17:00.000-04:00

You are fed up with your debt and want to start all over again? Tired of collection calls and worry about what would happen tomorrow? Tired of living pay day to pay day?

You are not alone. Each and every human being takes a debt atleast once in their lifetimes in one way or the other. The key to get out of debt is self-discipline. The best part about this is that you do not have to depend on financial advisor or some wall street guru or anyone else to get your life back on track. So, let us take a look at how it can be done.

Professionals often say that we should pre-pay our mortgage or you should keep paying the minimum due to the credit card companies but not the full amount due. Their argument is that if you have extra cash, you are better off investing in the stocks, bonds, real estate, gold etc etc for a better return rather than paying off your debt.

Well, this is true in some cases who have enough cash to pay off their debt in a flash. For others like me, I would prefer to pay off any debt I have. Investing in the market in any instrument like stocks, bonds, precious metals, real-estate etc in no guarantee to get returns. Rather, we could loose that money pretty quickly especially in this volatile market. However, what is guaranteed is that we are paying interest on our mortgage every month until that is paid off. Most importantly, having no debt on your shoulders, just changing your life. It gives you confidence to try out new ventures and in your abilities to manage your debt.

Let us consider a very simple example. Banks lend us money at a mere 3.5%-4% these days. Banks are guaranteed to keep collecting 3.5-4% interest on the their loans every month in the normal situation. If there are 10 such loans they are guaranteed on collect 35-40% income on their investment.
Banks have enough smart people working for them. If we were to follow the so-called financial experts, banks should not make lend money on just 4% rather they should invest in hot items like stocks, bonds and real-estate and that will generate a very high return.

Guess what! Banks followed their advice in 2008 and we all know what happened.

Again, There are no guarantees on the returns in any investment. However, any interest charges/late charges etc are guaranteed every month if there is any outstanding dues against you.

So, save some money every month and focus on reducing or eliminating your debt before we start investing. You will have more success and more favorable results.

Have a question? Please leave a comment and I would be glad to answer.

Should we worry about income taxes?

2011-10-18T11:56:00.000-04:00

Are income taxes really too high? Should we be worried about income taxes? Should we focus on ways to reduce income taxes?

There is enough debate on personal and business income taxes these days on almost all the news channels and websites. They have now become a talk point for the upcoming elections.

Should we really be scared about our taxes and focus on findings ways to reduce our taxable earnings and thus focus on getting in on the lower tax bracket. Well, I don't think so.

We pay income taxes only if we are making a profit. That is the first principle. So, let us assume that we are making $100 in profit and we are in 20% tax bracket. That means for every $100 we generate in profit, we keep $80 and give away $20 in taxes.

So, should we focus on saving $20 somehow by findings loop holes in tax codes, manipulating our expenses and somehow lowering our tax brackets or should we focus on generating hundreds more in profits thus keeping $80 for every $100.

If I were to choose, I would certainly focus on growing my business to be able to keep $80 out of every $100 I generate in revenue. Even if my tax goes to $30, I am still keeping $70 out of every $100, I am generating in profits.

So, unless my taxes are more than 51% of profits, I would still focus on growing more earnings for my family. Simply because, controlling taxes is not in my hands but exploring ways to generate more income certainly is.

Taxable Earnings	Tax Bracket	Taxes	After Taxes
100000	20	20000	80000
110000	22	24200	85800
120000	24	28800	91200
130000	26	33800	96200
140000	28	39200	100800
150000	30	45000	105000

As we see clearly, With more earnings, the tax bracket went up and so did the taxes. When we had $100,000 as taxable earnings, we were paying $20,000 in taxes. When we jumped to $150,000, our taxes went to $45,000.
However, the key point here is that when we had $100,000 in earnings, we took home only $80,000. When our business did good or we got promoted resulting in earnings to $150,000, we took home $105,000 which is a lot more than $80,000.

To conclude, I would prey for my income tax to increase and not decrease. Because if my income tax has increased, that simply means my income has grown too. I have more money to keep now.

I know we can go on and on on this topic but I would just say it is the way we look at things in our life. Opportunity comes in difficult times. Rather than getting depressed about the rise in income tax, I think about ways to add more income and writing blogs is one way to do that :)

Peoplesoft: Slow data conversions

2011-09-27T14:00:00.000-04:00

Are your data conversions running longer and longer?

There is a simple fix you can do to make it go faster. Let's discuss it here.

Let us look at the basic conversion process in any environment.

Flat Files -> Staging tables -> ERP tables.

This is how the typical conversion happens. We get the flat files from legacy the system. We load the data from the flat files to the staging tables using data loading utility like SQL Loader or any other tool.
Once the staging tables are populated, we apply business validations and business logic to make sure we have clean data. Finally, we insert the data into the ERP Tables.

In the above process, the use of the STAGING tables cannot be undermined but their use is only limited. The STAGING tables will not be used once the data is converted. The ERP application is never going to use the staging tables. So, by dropping the unnecessary indexes on these staging tables, we can easily improve the performance of the conversions by manifolds. In Peoplesoft, when we define ALT keys, Peopletools automatically create indexes on these keys that are often not needed as these staging tables are not going to be searched by the application.

Following the simple step described above, you are sure to make your conversions go faster by a factor that is dependent on the number of indexes dropped.

Have a question? Please leave a comment and I would be glad to answer.

Peoplesoft: Data conversions extremely slow

2011-09-27T12:20:00.000-04:00

One of the most important but yet forgotten concept during data conversions is 'database statistics'.

Object statistics give valuable information to the database optimizer to be able to generate the right execution plan for the SQL statements used in the conversions.
There are numerous ways that a given SQL statement can be executed.
For instance, you could reach nearest Starbucks or Subway from your home by taking a number of different roads/highways. Imagine, what would happen if you do not have the below critical information to get to your nearest Starbucks for your morning coffee.

Distance between your home and Starbucks
Condition of the various road
Traffic situation on these situations

You would not know which route to take to get there faster. You may end up taking the longest and slowest path.

Similarly, without the object level statistics, the database optimizer cannot decide how to execute the SQL statement in the most efficient manner. When we are dealing with conversions, we are dealing with millions or rows. So, the statistics become even more important.

In Peoplesoft, when we multi-thread a process, each thread works on its own instance of the base table. This instance of the table is temporary in nature meaning the data exists for the duration of the thread.
One of the first steps in the conversion is to gather statistics on the underlying objects like tables, and indexes once the initial INSERT statement is called to populate the STAGING tables.
This can be easily done in Peoplesoft by calling UPDATESTATS at the end of the INSERT statement. Another important point to remember here is to make sure to issue a COMMIT just after the INSERT and before the UPDATESTATS else, gather statistics would still run but would show 0 rows in dba_tables leading to incorrect execution path.

This simple step could save you countless hours in conversion and could save you a lot of hassles during the go-live. All the best for your go-live.

Have a question? Please leave a comment and I would be glad to answer.

Database Stats

2011-09-19T09:13:00.000-04:00

Has it every happened to you that a given database table has thousands or millions or rows but dba_tables shows 0 rows once you generated the statistics on the table?
Does it ring a bell?

Here is a simple scenario to test.

Like it happens it most data conversions, records get inserted into a staging table from a flat file. However, if we generate statistics on this table before a commit happens, the statistics will get generated but it would show 0 rows.

Hence, we should generate database statistics only after commit has been issued on the table after massive data inserts/deletes/updates.

So, go back to your code and review the position of commit and the command to generate the statistics. Commit should happen prior to generating statistics.

Have a question? Please leave a comment and I would be glad to answer.

Peoplesoft: Mass delete the enrollment

2011-09-12T12:41:00.000-04:00

There is a very easy way to mass delete the enrollment from a given class.

Go to Curriculum Management->Schedule of Classes->Maintain Schedule of Classes
Search for the required class
Go to Enrollment Cntrl tab.
Click on "Cancel if Students Enrolled" check box. It should be checked
Finally, change class status to "Cancelled Section".
This will delete all the enrollments for the given class.
If needed, you can make the class Active again.

This will drop all the existing enrollments of a given class. This is a quick way to drop everyone from the given class and start over.

Have a question? Please leave a comment and I would be glad to answer

Loadrunner Controller cannot connect to Load Generator

2011-09-06T14:04:00.000-04:00

Loadrunner controller cannot connect to Load Generators?
Here are a few things to check.
1) All the load generators are in the same network as the controller.
2) Load generator agent service is running on all the generators
3) Very important to make sure Windows Firewall is turned off. Agent service cannot start if windows firewall is on
4) Good practice to start the agent service/process as Administrator.

You should be able to make a connection between controller and generators.
Have a question? Please leave a comment and I would be glad to answer.