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Siebel Configurator Performance Factors

For an overview of Siebel Configurator server components and other architecture elements, see Siebel Configurator Server Components.

Siebel Configurator performance contexts to consider include response times for:

• Loading customizable products. The time elapsed from the moment a user clicks Customize in a quote or order until the Siebel Configurator user interface for the customizable product is loaded and displayed to the user.
• Responding to user selections. The time elapsed from the moment a user makes a selection until Siebel Configurator returns a response, such as an update to the customizable product or a conflict message.

The following performance factors, particularly customizable product size and complexity, are relevant in both of these contexts:

• Number of concurrent configuration users. The number of concurrent users who access customizable product definitions. This figure is some percentage of the total number of concurrent users on all of the applicable Application Object Managers.

  Specifically, you would be concerned with the total number of configuration sessions per hour, and the average length of those sessions.

• Size and complexity of customizable products. The total size and complexity of each customizable product definition, particularly where multiple hierarchical levels, many constraints, and a complex user interface are defined.

  A major potential performance factor is custom scripting attached to update events on applicable business components, such as Quote, Quote Item, Quote Item Attribute, Order, Order Item, and Order Item Attribute.

• Number of customizable products. The number of customizable products accessed by users. It is assumed that each user accesses no more than one customizable product at one time. A given group of concurrent users might access multiple customizable products, however, each of which must have a separately cached factory. (An existing worker can be shared if one is available. Otherwise, internal performance mechanisms generate a new worker.)
• Use of SnapShot mode caching. A feature that caches customizable products in memory, significantly reducing the amount of time required to load customizable products for each new user. SnapShot mode is particularly useful for improving performance when a product line has a small number of large, complex customizable products. For more information about SnapShot mode caching, see Siebel Product Administration Guide.

The response time of loading customizable products depends in part on the time taken to extract the customizable product definition from the database, and the time needed to instantiate all of the services required to create the session. At the highest level, the response time for loading a customizable product would be best under the following circumstances:

• The customizable product definition is cached in memory and does not have to be extracted from the database.
• All of the services that are required are already available and do not have to be instantiated.

Caching of objects and services in memory can lead to significant improvement in load time performance for a configuration session. Ideally, everything would be cached, which would give the best possible load time performance. However, that is not possible because the RAM available on the server is limited. For this reason, a caching strategy must be devised for each deployment. To enable administrators to implement the caching strategy that is best suited for their deployment, several switches in the form of server parameters have been provided.