Chapter 5   Verifying the Deployment


This chapter discusses how to verify that your deployment of the iPlanet Market Maker software has been successful. Guidelines for ongoing DBA maintenance activities are also included.

The following sections are contained in this chapter:

• Deployment Verification Checklist

• Recommended DBA Maintenance Activities

Deployment Verification Checklist

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Table 5-1 lists the tasks you need to perform to verify that your system has been installed and configured properly.

Table 5-1    Verification Checklist 

Component		Description
Solaris	1	Verify that the correct patches for Solaris are installed on all the servers as specified in the iPlanet Market Maker Installation Guide.
Oracle	2	Verify that the initial database administration setup is performed and that the initialization parameters are set to values corresponding to your catalog size.
	3	Perform periodic maintenance—Apart from daily database monitoring and logging activities, analyze the tables and indexes and gather statistics. Run the ctxsrv process.
	4	Verify that Net8 is configured for the Installer to create the Oracle schema. Verify that SQLPLUS can connect as follows: sqlplus userid/passwd@service_name
	5	Verify that the database URL points to the correct host and port locations on all the iPlanet WebServer/iPlanet Market Maker hosts.
	6	Verify that the maximum connection pool sizes are set to correct values on all the iPlanet WebServer/iPlanet Market Maker hosts.
	7	Verify that the extent sizes of the Oracle tables (indexes) for different modules are set to appropriate values.
iPlanet Directory Server (LDAP)	8	Verify that ldaphost and ldapport settings point to the correct host and port locations on all the iPlanet WebServer/iPlanet Market Maker hosts.
	9	Verify that the minimum and maximum values of the LDAP connection pool settings are set correctly on all the iPlanet WebServer/iPlanet Market Maker hosts.
	10	Verify that the LDAP indexes are added to the slapd.ldbm.conf file.
	11	After the system achieves stability, verify that the LDAP access logs are turned off.
iPlanet Application Server	12	Verify that the maximum heap size and the garbage collection parameters for JVM in the KJS script are set to prescribed values on all iPlanet Application Server instances.
	13	Verify that the maximum and the minimum of threads for KJS and kxs is set to 32.
	14	For optimal performance, verify that Enable Server Eventlog is unchecked in the Logging tab of the administration tool.
	15	Verify that the Sticky Load Balance for servlets System_JSPRunner and System_JSPRunnerSticky are enabled.
	16	Use the kregedit command to verify that the round robin parameters under the LOADB for each instance of iPlanet Application Server is set to 1.
	17	For optimal performance, use the kregedit command to verify that the distributable session parameter is set to false.
iPlanet Market Maker	18	Verify that job scheduler is enabled.
Proxy servers	19	Verify that the forwarding rules are set so all requests are passed from the proxy server to the web server.
Firewalls	20	Verify that all ports other than port 80 are disabled.
Interoperability	21	If iPlanet Market Maker and iPlanet BuyerXpert are running on separate machine, verify that the system times on both machines are set the same.

Recommended DBA Maintenance Activities

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Apart from daily DBA monitoring and logging activities, the following steps are recommended:

• The queries are tuned to run using a cost-based optimizer. This requires that you analyze the tables and indexes and gather statistics periodically.

• The catalog and auctions module uses the interMedia option for text searches. Text indexes are not automatically updated by Oracle; therefore, it is necessary to manually synchronize the indexes with any changes that have taken place in the actual tables. This synchronization must be performed by the Oracle DBA.

  In general, operating on the catalog indexes requires the following steps, where the value PARAM will be replaced by an actual value, depending on the operation:

  1. Log in to the Oracle instance that is hosting the iPlanet Market Maker database as a user for Catalog module.

  2. Run the following:

     alter index cat.cat_atr_value_txt1 rebuild online parameters ('PARAM');
     

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     Note	The single quotes surrounding PARAM are necessary.

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     In this command, replace 'PARAM' with the following values:

     • For synchronization of the indexes, 'PARAM' = sync.

     • For full optimization of the indexes, 'PARAM' = optimize full.

     • For full optimization, but only allowing the optimizer to run for a certain length of time, 'PARAM' = optimize full maxtime N, where N is the time in minutes that the optimizer will run.

• We recommend using the ctxsrv process (or dbms_job process) to perform synchronization. This process (written and supplied by Oracle) provides regular synchronization updates. Run the following steps:
  1. Log in, as the Oracle user, to the machine on which the iPlanet Market Maker database will be hosted.

  2. Run the following command:

     ctxsrv [-user ctxsys/passwd[@sqlnet_address]]

     [-personality M]

     [-logfile log_name]

     [-sqltrace]

     ctxsrv -user ctxsys/ctxsys -personality M -log ctx.log &

  3. To stop the ctxsrv process, run the following steps:
     1. Log in, as the Oracle user, to the machine on which the iPlanet Market Maker database will be hosted.

     2. Using SQLPLUS, log into Oracle as user ctxsys, password ctxsys.

     3. Run the following:

        begin ctx_adm.shutdown; end;

• In addition, the DBA should perform a full optimization of the indexes regularly, depending on the amount of change that has occurred to the catalog.

  Run the following command periodically to handle fragmentation of interMedia indexes (running the ctxsrv process contributes to index fragmentation.):

  alter index myindex rebuild online parameters ('optimize fast');

  or

  alter index myindex rebuild online parameters ('optimize full');

Refer to the Oracle 8.1.7 / 9i interMedia Text Reference for more details on performing periodic maintenance activities.