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Testing EIM Processes

This issue, fully and completely testing the EIM processes, tends to be overlooked. Testing is more than simply mapping the data and then running an EIM process using the default EIM configuration file. Complete testing requires you to run a large number of identical EIM jobs with similar data. This allows you to not only find any areas that you may have overlooked, but it also provides some insight into the optimal sizing of the EIM batches and exposure to scenarios that may occur in a production environment.

Before using EIM, a database administrator must populate the EIM tables with data to be processed by EIM. Then, you can invoke EIM to process this data, with EIM making multiple passes through the tables to complete the specified process.

EIM reads a special configuration file that specifies the EIM process to perform (import, merge, delete, or export) and the appropriate parameters. The EIM configuration file (the default file is default.ifb) is an ASCII text file of extension type .IFB that resides in the admin subdirectory under the Siebel server directory. Before running an EIM process, you must edit the contents of the EIM configuration file to define the processes that EIM will perform.

The EIM log file can contain information at different levels of detail depending on the values of three flags—the Error flag, the SQL flag, and the Trace flag. For more information on these flags, see Siebel Enterprise Integration Manager Administration Guide. Some of the recommended settings are described in the following list:

• As a starting point, it is recommended to set the Error Flag=1, the SQL flag = 1, and the Trace Flag=1. This setting will show errors and unused foreign keys. The setting Trace Flags=1 will provide a summary (after each batch) of the elapsed time after EIM updates primary child relationships in the Siebel database tables as necessary and runs optional miscellaneous SQL statements.
• Set Error flag = 1, SQL flag = 8, and Trace flag = 3. These settings will produce a log file with SQL statements that include how long each statement took, which is useful for optimizing SQL performance.
• Set Error flag = 0, SQL flag = 0, and Trace flag = 1. These settings will produce a log file showing how long each EIM step took, which is useful when figuring out the optimal batch size as well as monitoring for deterioration of performance in a particular step.