Configuring Session Pooling for Siebel Product Configurator

This topic is part of About Siebel Product Configurator Caching.

Administrators can optionally configure session pooling for customizable products and multiple remote instances of the Siebel Product Configurator Object Manager. This feature is intended to provide better performance when agents or self-service users work with customizable products that are routed to remote Siebel Product Configurators.

Multiple customizable products within a single bundled promotion can be configured to be routed to multiple remote Siebel Product Configurators. Alternatively, all customizable products in a bundled promotion can be routed to the same remote Siebel Product Configurator. Customizable products or bundled promotions that are mapped in this way can now use a session pool.

Note: In this guide, a remote Siebel Product Configurator and a dedicated Siebel Product Configurator mean the same thing: one or more instances of the Siebel Product Configurator Object Manager, wherever they are located within the Siebel CRM deployment.

How Session Pooling Works

During product configuration, a session pool is maintained between the Siebel Application Object Managers and the remote Siebel Product Configurators. The pooled sessions are reused, which reduces delays associated with frequent logins and logouts on the remote Siebel Product Configurators, compared to deployments that do not use session pooling. Call-handling agents can expect reduced response times and call times from this feature. Self-service users can also expect reduced response times.

With session pooling, a new session is created as needed to work with a customizable product on a remote Siebel Product Configurator (based on the mappings in the Cache Administration view), along with a corresponding session handle on the calling Application Object Manager. After the user completes work with the customizable product, the session is enqueued and is available to be reused for any customizable product that is mapped to the same remote Siebel Product Configurator. A session not in use remains enqueued unless it expires and becomes invalid, based on the value of the eProdCfgKeepAliveTime parameter, which is described in Running Siebel Product Configurator on Dedicated Servers.

The session handle becomes invalid if the remote Siebel Product Configurator session becomes invalid. The session handle is also invalid if the remote Siebel Product Configurator goes offline, in which case a new session handle and session are created again later when the remote Siebel Product Configurator is up again.

For a subsequent session request, if existing sessions are in use or there are no enqueued sessions for any of the mapped remote Siebel Product Configurators, then a new session is created on one of the mapped remote Siebel Product Configurators, along with a corresponding session handle on the calling Application Object Manager.

Mappings in the ecfgserver.txt File

Although you define mappings in the Cache Administration view, during runtime the routing is achieved by referencing the ecfgserver.txt file, which is located in the ISS_OBrkCache/CFGDefs subdirectory in the Siebel File System. When you have set up the mappings, the ecfgserver.txt file is generated with entries using the following format: eCfgServer=CP-RowId:Promo-RowId_Promo-RuleId,CP-RowId2:Promo-RowId2_Promo-RuleId2, where:

  • eCfgServer is the name of the remote Siebel Product Configurator Object Manager. For example, for component cache, this might be eProdCfgObjMgr_enu or eProdCfgObjMgr2_enu. For server cache, this might be SiebelServer1 or SiebelServer2.

  • CP-RowId (or CP-RowId2, and so on) is the row ID of the customizable product.

  • Promo-RowId (or Promo-RowId2, and so on) is the row ID of the bundled promotion.

  • Promo-RuleId (or Promo-RuleId2, and so on) is the row ID of the bundled promotion rule.

Alternatively, entries might specify only customizable products, as in the following format: eCfgServer=CP-RowId,CP-RowId2 Each entry in the ecfgserver.txt file is terminated by a semicolon.

Event Logging for Session Pooling

Event logging for session pooling details the creation of a new RemoteCfgSession. The session pool queue size is logged when the following log event is set:

eProdCfgLog=4

System Preference for Session Pooling

Before you can configure session pooling for Siebel Product Configurator, you must enable the feature by setting the eProdCfg Session Pooling system preference to Y. The default setting is N, which disables session pooling for remote Siebel Product Configurators. Changing the value of this system preference requires that you restart the Siebel Enterprise, as described in Siebel System Administration Guide.

Related Topics

Cache Management for Siebel Product Configurator

Running Siebel Product Configurator on Dedicated Servers

Related Books

Siebel Database Upgrade Guide

Siebel CRM Update Guide and Release Notes on My Oracle Support

Siebel System Administration Guide