Feature	Benefit
Detect
Role-based Administration	VERITAS i³ for Oracle comes with a role controlled common interface that enables the appropriate organization to see the information they are entitled to see. This interface when fully exploited allows the authorized user to have a full access to all the VERITAS i³ features. For example, a user from the operational support group may need to drill into a specific component tier to isolate a problem, while a user from production group need only identify that a problem has occurred.
View Performance Management End-to-End	VERITAS i³ for Oracle makes is very easy to look across your entire application to quickly identify performance bottlenecks. The initial "Start Point" screen provides a visual representation of the performance of each of your application tiers. This empowers organization such as operations to quickly identify performance hot spots by tier. In this example, the application is composed of Web Client, Web Server, J2EE Server and Oracle Database Server tiers. Hot spots are being reported in multiple tiers. Performance indicators on the Web Server tier indicate that application users may be experiencing slow response times because of a resource consumption problem located somewhere in the application. This is further supported by the presence of other performance and load warning in the other tiers.
Detect Problems using Real-Time Alerts	Customers have the flexibility to establish performance management thresholds on key metrics in each application tier. When thresholds are exceeded, an alert is generated to ensure production and operations groups react quickly. Alerts are categorized into Performance (resource consumption), Load (Scalability and load issues), Service (service times), Maintenance (general component parameters and system settings), Load Trending (exceptions to normal trend curves and excess capacity warnings) and Customized alerts. VERITAS i³ for Oracle can automatically establish performance baselines eliminating the need to set performance threshold metrics for all the different application tiers and their components. Drilling into Alert information for the Web Server Tier indicates that there is currently one critical performance alert relating to client IP users. Further drill-down into the alert shows which clients are experiencing response time problems.
Detect Problems Proactively	Some application performance problems can be detected and corrected before they become a problem. VERITAS i³ for Oracle makes it easy to find potential problems before they become real problems. Extensive reporting features make it easy to proactively tune the performance of your applications. IT organizations can run a set of standard or custom reports to isolate potential problems on any of the application tiers. It is also a great way to keep management and customers informed of how application performance may affect the business model now or in the future through trend, exception, and scalability reports. In the example we can take a detailed look at how the web server tier under investigation has been performing relative to URL down load requests from clients.
Find
Isolate Performance Problems By Tier	Once an application performance problem is detected, VERITAS i³ for Oracle allows the performance team to drill into a view of performance across all tiers. This holistic, specialized view of the applications allows staff to begin investigation of the problem by viewing key components and indicators to begin eliminating tiers and components that are not the problem. Various views such as key activities on each tier can be seen on one screen, correlated by the time frame under review. In this screen we can see the top five activities for each tier. In the Web Server tier we see URL file requests, in the application (J2EE) tier we see top five method invocations and in the Database tier we see the top 5 SQL statements. We can now get a better idea of the source of the slowdown. In the overview tab to the left we see that the majority of service time for the application is being spent in the Database tier.
SmarTune Isolates Performance Problems to One Tier	We know that our performance problem is more than likely related to a database issue. Studying the overtime graph quickly eliminates the network as a source of the problem. By using VERITAS i³'s revolutionary SmarTune algorithms, we are able to further isolate a performance problem from what appears to be multiple tiers to a single tier. One click on the most resource intensive URL file instantly aligns the activities on all tiers to only those associated with the selected URL file. We now understand that our two web clients are experiencing the same slowdown when downloading the same URL file. It is apparent from the screen shot that the performance issue is related to a specific SQL statement being executed from an application (J2EE) method and we know which one it is. SQL statements are identified with a unique hash value throughout the VERITAS i³ for Oracle solution. Of course the text of the statement is always available.
Drill into the Oracle Database tier	In a matter of 4-5 mouse clicks we have already isolated the performance problem to a poorly performing SQL statement in the database tier. Drilling into the Oracle Database tier shows us that this same statement is also the top resource consuming statement of all application statements executing against this database.
Focus
Focus on the Oracle SQL Statement	We have discovered the root cause of the slow response time for the application, a poorly performing SQL statement. Now its time to focus in to discover the reason for its poor performance. Further drill-down into the SQL statement reveals that the statement beginning with 00811 is spending a large amount of time waiting on I/O.
Understand The SQL Statement	VERITAS i³ keeps the last three unique explain plans for every statement executed in the database in a performance warehouse repository. By taking a look at the last explain plan for the statement as well as previous explain plans, we are able to quickly determine that the root cause of the slowdown is due to full table scans. In fact, because of the historical archive we could also determine if this statement ever used an index and if so, what happened to it.
Improve
SmarTune Recommends Indexes to Improve Performance	Once the root cause has been identified, it is time to improve performance. VERITAS i³ utilizes special SmarTune algorithms to recommend indexes for a specific SQL statement regardless of the source of the statement (e.g. Oracle Applications, custom code). In this example we see that VERITAS i³ has recommended three possible indexes to improve performance.
Automatically Analyze and Display Impact	Once you create your own indexes or let VERITAS i³ suggest them for you, it then provides an automated impact analysis so that you can be sure that whatever changes you make, you will know the full impact of those changes on all other SQL statements, before you put it into production. VERITAS i³ displays the impacted statements in an easy to read list that also shows the statement text. Impact statistics can also be shown per statement by selecting the Impacts tab.
Simulate Your Changes	The criticality of your Oracle database demands that you take every precation prior to rolling out your changes into production. One of the most important things you can do is to know whether the change you made will actually improve performance. VERITAS i³ is able to simulate the execution times for each impacted statement showing you detailed statistics including the duration of the execution. Because of the detailed performance statistics kept on each statement both in recent history and the Performance Warehouse, you can rely on the accuracy of this information to make critical decisions about which alternative you will apply.
Verify
Verify Performance from a Database Perspective	Only one final step is left. Making sure that all is going according to plan once you have put the performance correction into production. Using the built in graphical analysis of the Indepth component of VERITAS i³ and the statistics collected in the performance warehouse you can verify your performance improvements from the database tier perspective.
Verify Performance from an End-to-End Perspective	Using the built in graphical analysis of the Inform component of VERITAS i³ and the statistics collected in the performance warehouse you can verify your performance improvements from the end-user perspective.