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The Hidden Cost of Workflow

The Hidden Cost of Workflow. Gary Piper AUSOUG Sydney August 2005. Agenda…. Two issues Workflow load balancing (Cost) Purging obsolete workflow items Symptoms: Workflow background process runs every 5 min 24*7

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The Hidden Cost of Workflow

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  1. The Hidden Cost of Workflow Gary Piper AUSOUG Sydney August 2005

  2. Agenda… • Two issues • Workflow load balancing (Cost) • Purging obsolete workflow items • Symptoms: • Workflow background process runs every 5 min 24*7 • Poor performance from workflow and workflow & background engine performance degrading over time • Actions: • Establish Cause • Purging - What and How

  3. X X The Theory… • “Real-time” Workflow load is managed by identifying costly activities / processes, so that when they are encountered by the workflow engine they are immediately given a “deferred” status and the workflow engine continues processing the next activity. The deferred processes are then processed by a Workflow Background Process which can be run at an appropriate time.

  4. What Actually Happens… • The background process is run more frequently than is “required” • Every 3 – 5 min 24 * 7 • Every 15 min 24 * 7 • What is actually being deferred? • Should the activity be deferred ( Business decision ) • If an activity is required to be processed immediately • Assess why the activity is so urgent • Don’t run a regular background process to clear the item ( fixes the symptom ) • Don’t allow the items to become deferred in the first place ( fix the cause )

  5. What's In a Cost… • Each workflow activity has an associated cost. • The “Cost” value represents the number of seconds it should take to execute the activity. • Generally when workflows are created, the cost is estimated or ignored. • Cost is both entered and displayed in seconds. The value stored in the database wf_activities.cost is in hundredths of a second • The default threshold for the Workflow Engine is 50 hundredths of a second. Activities with a cost higher than this are deferred and are run by the Workflow Background process • In a perfect world when sufficient runtime information is available, a Cost Vs Actual review should be completed This rarely happens

  6. How can this occur…

  7. How can this occur…

  8. The Basic Cause… Over the wall Functional Team Technical Team Workflow Background Process Definition Workflow Definition (Clone) Activity must be process immediately Cost is rarely defined and set Functional Changes Cost Reviews

  9. Assess the Damage… • Frequency of execution • Purging Obsolete Workflow Runtime Data • Is it running into itself • Frequency of execution Vs run time • Restart from beginning of prior run? • Workflow Background Process Example: (15 min 24 * 7)

  10. So What is Being Processed… • How much is being processed? • State change is overwritten, so there for little audibility • Monitor by “Select count” of Deferred items type every n minutes • Look at the runtime of the BG process to identify peaks Toad E-Business suite Plug-in (Beta)

  11. Review Actual Vs Execution Times… SELECT wa.item_type "Item Type", substr(witt.display_name,1,40) "Display Name", wa.name, wa.version, count(*) "Executions", wa.cost "Intenal", wa.cost / 100 "Cost (Sec)", round(min(( wias.end_date - wias.begin_date )*86400),0) "Min (Sec)", round(avg(( wias.end_date - wias.begin_date )*86400),0) "Avg (Sec)", round(max(( wias.end_date - wias.begin_date )*86400),0) "Max (Sec)" FROM wf_activities wa, wf_item_types_tl witt, wf_item_activity_statuses wias WHERE wa.item_type = wias.item_type(+) and wa.item_type = witt.name and witt.language = userenv('LANG') and wa.cost > 50 and sysdate between wa.begin_date and nvl(wa.end_date, sysdate + 1) GROUP BY wa.item_type, witt.display_name, wa.name, wa.version, wa.cost ORDER BY wa.cost DESC; Note: Paper attendance required to interpret this output Item Typ Display Name NAME VERSION Executions Intenal Cost (Sec) Min (Sec) Avg (Sec) Max(Sec) -------- ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- --------- MSCEXPWF MSC: ASCP Exception Messages PROCESS RESPONSE 10 5028 10000 100 0 0 1 POAPPRV PO Approval MASS_UPDATE_RELEASES 1 232013 10000 100 0 144265 8204232 POAPPRV PO Approval NOOP 24 232013 10000 100 0 144265 8204232 POAPPRV PO Approval PLACE_SOURCING_INFO_ON_REQ 1 232013 10000 100 0 144265 8204232 REQAPPRV PO Requisition Approval NOOP 29 51560 10000 100 0 450 3130878

  12. Case Study - Workflow… • Issue: • Client site in a constant state of performance issues for past year • Technical DBA constantly monitoring CPU and I/O usage and looking for resource hogs • Current Activity: • Technical DBA reviewing tools to identify CPU and I/O bottlenecks • A Capex is in place for hardware, fewer faster CPU’s (4 – 2) • Background: • Technical DBA’s has limited E-Business Suite experience running the application

  13. Case Study - Workflow… 15,000 Requests per day Concurrent Manager Activity Profile Charts reproduced with permission of PIPER-Rx

  14. Case Study - Workflow… Concurrent Request Activity (21 Days) 15,000 Requests per day 93.4% of all concurrent manager activity

  15. Case Study - Workflow… Actual Vs User Activity (estimated) Graphs reproduced with permission of PIPER-Rx

  16. Case Study - Workflow… Actual User Activity by Hour of Day Graphs reproduced with permission of PIPER-Rx

  17. Case Study - Workflow… Concurrent Manager Activity (Adjusted) Graphs reproduced with permission of PIPER-Rx

  18. Case Study - Workflow… Revealing the “real” Activity profile Graphs reproduced with permission of PIPER-Rx

  19. Purging… PURGING

  20. Purging Obsolete Workflow Runtime Data… • Argument set: • Item Type - leave this value blank to purge all item types • Beware: Insufficient resources to purge all • Warning: • Workflow Purge will only purge items that have been defined with a persistence of TEMPORARY and the number of persistence days have expired. A workflow with a persistence of Permanent will never be purged by the default purge settings

  21. So What Is Purgable… Note: Column formatting not shown SELECT witt.display_name A, wit.name B, wit.persistence_type C, wit.persistence_days D, count(wi.item_key) E, apps.wf_purge.getpurgeablecount(wit.name) F  Secret weapon FROM wf_item_types wit, wf_item_types_tl witt, wf_items wi WHERE wit.name = witt.name and witt.language = userenv('LANG') and wit.name = wi.item_type GROUP BY witt.display_name, wit.name, wit.persistence_type, wit.persistence_days ORDER BY count(wi.item_key) DESC; Persistence Persistence Work Flow Work Flow Display Name WF Item Type Type Days Count Purgable ---------------------------------------- -------------------- ----------- ----------- ---------- ---------- CSM Type 3 CSMTYPE3 TEMP 0 19415 0 FA Account Generator FAFLEXWF PERM 8651 8651 PA: HR Related Updates Workflow PAXWFHRU TEMP 0 8591 8480 AR: Substitute Balancing Segment ARSBALSG PERM 4823 4823 OM Order Line OEOL TEMP 0 4802 3547 PO Approval POAPPRV TEMP 20 3324 2321 Planning Exception Messages MRPEXPWF TEMP 0 3124 0 System: Error WFERROR TEMP 0 2287 49 ……………………..

  22. So What Is Purgable… Toad E-Business suite Plug-in (Beta)

  23. Purging… • Warning: • wf_item_attribute_values (up to 5:1) • wf_notifications • Gather Schema Statistics • Index Rebuilds

  24. State of the Indexes… SELECT index_name "Index Name", num_rows "index Row Count", decode(table_name, 'WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES',count_statuses.count, 'WF_ITEM_ATTRIBUTE_VALUES', count_values.count, null) "Table Row Count", last_analyzed "Last Analysed", trunc(sysdate - last_analyzed) "last Analyzed (days)", partitioned FROM dba_indexes, (SELECT count(*) count FROM WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES ) count_statuses, (SELECT count(*) count FROM WF_ITEM_ATTRIBUTE_VALUES ) count_values WHERE table_owner = 'APPLSYS' and table_name in ('WF_ITEM_ATTRIBUTE_VALUES', 'WF_ACTIVITY_ATTR_VALUES', 'WF_ACTIVITY_TRANSITIONS', 'WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES', 'WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES_H', 'WF_PROCESS_ACTIVITIES', 'WF_NOTIFICATIONS') and index_type = 'NORMAL' ORDER BY table_name, index_name; Index Name index Row Count Table Row Count Last Anal last Analyzed (days) PAR ------------------------------ --------------- --------------- --------- -------------------- --- WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES_N1 708324 740035 01-APR-04 375 NO WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES_N2 13823 740035 17-JUN-03 663 NO WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES_N3 725979 740035 17-JUN-03 663 NO WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES_N4 725979 740035 17-JUN-03 663 NO WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES_PK 725979 740035 17-JUN-03 663 YES  WF_ITEM_ATTRIBUTE_VALUES_PK 4194640 4178092 17-JUN-03 663 NO

  25. Questions… Questions? Disclaimer: All material contained in this document is provided by the author "as is" and any express or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, any implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In no event shall the author be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of any content or information, even if advised of the possibility of such damage. It is always recommended that you seek independent, professional advice before implementing any ideas or changes to ensure that they are appropriate

  26. The Hidden Cost of Workflow Gary Piper AUSOUG Sydney August 2005

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