Business Objects 3.1 Metrics definitions and recommendations

Question

Hi folks,
Does anybody know what is the definition of the following information in the CMC - Metrics,  global system
metrics and how it is calculated:
System Connections
Total Open Connections
Does each system connection create a session in the system database?
What would be the recommended number of sessions in the CMS DB for
lets say 300 concurrent users?
Cheers,
John

Answer 1

In that screen (CMC -> Settings -> Global System Metrics), the term u201CConnectionu201D refers to Enterprise Sessions open in the CMS. u201CTotal Open Connectionsu201D is the total number of opened connections (Enterprise sessions) in your BOE cluster. Almost anything that interacts with the BOE cluster needs to log on first and open a session with the CMS : this can be end users of course from any client tool, but also internal servers when, for instance, running a job. u201CSystem Connectionsu201D is the subset of that total for all u201Cinternalu201D sessions, not directly opened by end users but by servers / components of the BOE cluster.
Tests you can do to prove the point :
-     Log on to Infoview with any user : observe Total Open Connections increases by 1, and System Connections stays the same.
-     Log off from Infoview : observe Total Open Connections decreases by 1, and System Connections stays the same.
-     Log back on to Infoview (Total Open Connections increases by 1), schedule a report to run now, wait for the job to be in running state : observe both Total Open Connections and Systems Connections increase by 1.
-     Wait for the job to complete, and when it is in a success (or failed) state : observe both Total Open Connections and System Connections decrease by 1.
-     Log off from Infoview : observe Total Open Connections decreases by 1, and System Connections stays the same.
Note that from a licensing standpoint, only the end user session count towards the license count. This is important for all CAL licensed systems.
To summarize and answer your specific questions :
u201CTotal Open Connectionsu201D = u201CSystem Connectionsu201D + end user open sessions
With 300 concurrent users, you would see u201CTotal Open Connectionsu201D at 300+ . The exact number of "System Connections" depends on what kind of activity the users are doing, and how many jobs are running at that time.
CMS database sessions are handled independently of Enterprise sessions : although a session is persisted in a the CMS repository, it is obviously held in memory and the CMS has also its own database connection pooling mechanism.