PeopleSoft Tipster

I’m Nicolas Gasparotto and this is how I work November 14, 2012

Nicolas Gasparotto is one of the longest running PeopleSoft bloggers having started in 2006 (a year before me, the same year as Jim Marion and David Kurtz, and only one year after the Grey Heller guys). His ‘On the PeopleSoft Road‘ blog focuses mainly on installation, infrastructure and DBA activites and is packed with step-by-step walkthroughs of installs. Nicolas is also an Oracle ACE and is often found dishing out helpful advice on the OTN Discussion Forums (since August 2002 he’s made 23,742 posts – an average of 6.5 posts every day, for a decade!).

Name: Nicolas Gasparotto

Occupation: Oracle and PeopleSoft Administrator – contractor
Location: Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Current computer: Dell Inspiron 1720 (WinXP Pro, 4GB RAM, 2*250Gb HD). It’s rather old. In fact, it’s nothing but a client to my Dell server PowerEdge 2900III (16GB RAM, 4*500Gb HD in RAID0, Quad core Xeon CPU) and Qnap NAS Server (4*1Tb in RAID5)
Current mobile devices: Samsung Galaxy S, Kindle

What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?
Installed on my own Dell PowerEdge 2900III server, I’m using VMWare vSphere Hypervisor (free) on a daily basis for learning the new PeopleSoft stuff on my own, installing etc. I also had an Oracle VM implementation on a spare desktop, but it has to be renewed.

Regarding the databases side, I can’t live without Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c, especially helpful when managing 50+ databases.

Besides your phone and computer, what gadget can’t you live without?
My Kindle is my best friend in the 3 hours I spend daily on public transportation. I read a lot.

What’s your workspace like?
My home desk is currently “under construction”… my 1.5 year old son makes it a bit more complicated to manage.

What do you listen to while you work?
I already tried it, but at the end of the disc, I was surprised that was finished, I realized I did not hear anything. Since then, I don’t listen music at all when I work.

What PeopleSoft-related productivity apps do you use?
If available on client site, OEM is definitely a useful tool. Easy to make performance comprehensive reports, and being able to show it to the Infra manager… for further action.

Do you have a 2-line tip that some others might not know?
I can say the Peoplesoft plugin in Enterprise Manager Cloud Control is a must to have. It gives a lot of information, availability, loading…

It allows to configure a lot of parameters, if not all, on AppServer, Process Scheduler and PIA, start/stop… even though it needs to be improve a lot.

What SQL/Code do you find yourself writing most often?
I use a bunch of my own SQL scripts for locks checking, AWR reporting… Somehow, I also have run quite often a DMS script to unlock/change password of users on demo/test environments without SSL.

What would be the one item you’d add to PeopleSoft if you could?
It would be nice to have a page in PeopleTools menu dedicated to the Application Server configuration (and Process Scheduler ?), such as something we have for the Web Profile. I’d like to be able to set trace level, change parameter without going somewhere else (actually on the server) and take back the logs. We could then give some permission to the developer’s account for that. Of course, as an administrator, you should keep an eye on the disk space.

And in a dream, be able to work on PeopleSoft without the need of Windows OS. Have App Designer running on a Linux Distro?

What everyday thing are you better at than anyone else?
Keeping an eye on the OS and databases heartbeat to be pro-active as much as possible, trying to solve issues quickly before the phone rings, with a good and positive mind.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Don’t postpone until tomorrow what you can do today.

I’m Hakan Biroglu and this is how I work November 7, 2012

I’m very grateful to Hakan Biroglu for agreeing to be the next subject in this series.

Although Hakan has been in the industry a long time (he’s been working on Oracle Apps for 13 years, and Peoplesoft for 10 years) I’d not met him until recently. His blog will be familiar to many and he’s one of the most prolific and helpful experts on the PeopleSoft areas in the OTN forums. Hakan works for Logica (now part of CGI) in the Netherlands. I bumped into him at this year’s OpenWorld where he gave a session on the benefits of upgrading to Tools 8.52.

Name: Hakan Biroglu

Occupation: Software Architect PeopleSoft & Practice Lead Fusion Applications
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Current computer: Toshiba Tecra (Win7, 8GB RAM)
Current mobile devices: Google Galaxy Nexus Phone, iPad

What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?
I would have to start with VMWare Player (Sorry folks, not that of a big fan of VirtualBox). Since my computers kept crashing on me, I decided to run everything in virtual machines and of course having backups of these on external hard disks. Now I have dozens of virtual machines with different versions of PeopleSoft and other content. Whenever needed I just start another virtual machine. Other tools I cannot live without are Google, NotePad++, 7zip, soapUI and Snagit. And not to forget, My Oracle Support, the OTN Forums and PeopleBooks (after 10 years I still use it on a daily basis). What most people do not know is that there is a great amount of information on iLearning, PeopleSoft YouTube Channel and the Advisor Webcasts.

Besides your phone and computer, what gadget can’t you live without?
Call me old fashioned, but I do not use gadgets whatsoever. All I need is a flip over board, whiteboard or just a piece of paper and a pen, to visualize and share my thoughts.

What’s your workspace like?

Lately our team has become a big fan of using SCRUM methodology on PeopleSoft projects. So we have our digital SCRUM board on screen and our post-its with the sprint tasks on the wall, to keep us focused on our deliverables and timelines.

What do you listen to while you work?
I actually never listen to music when I work. The reason for this is that when I am concentrating on my work I do not see or hear anything from around me. So if someone else has music on, I do not mind because I won’t hear it when I start working.

Do you have a 2-line tip that some others might not know?
When you create a new component and use the wizard in Application Designer to create a content reference, this gets added nicely in the PeopleSoft menu. When you migrate this new component and content reference to the next environment, using the Copy to Database function in Application Designer, the content reference is nowhere to be found in the next environment. And now the 2-line tip:

Go to PeopleTools > Portal > Structure and Content and click on edit on a higher level content reference, change anything, save, change it back to the original state and save again. Now hit F5 to refresh your browser and the content reference is visible in your menu, without running the Portal Security Sync. It’s like magic …

What SQL/Code do you find yourself writing most often?
I am actually against using/writing SQL in PeopleSoft/PeopleCode, except when used for views. When writing SQL, developers tend to write database specific SQL and not use MetaSQL. Or they tend to write highly complex SQL statements, which contains a lot of the business logic. This is not readable, maintainable or extendable. I am a big fan of using Application Classes and the PeopleCode API’s, especially using the ObjectDoMethod function to write abstract, configurable code.

What would be the one item you’d add to PeopleSoft if you could?
Code completion would be a nice feature to add to Application Designer.

Another thing. Although PeopleSoft is now fully service enabled, it is not fully service oriented. It would be great if the number of services would be extended (and documented!) and the components would be “dummy” pages calling the services. This way, you could integrate PeopleSoft easier with any other application or middleware.

What everyday thing are you better at than anyone else?
I think that where others see a problem, I see a challenge.

Most of the time people are focused on answering a question. When you are asked a question and in turn ask why the question is being asked, most of the time you will find out the true question/issue is something else and most likely the answer to the true question is easier to answer.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Recently I read a book on Steve Jobs his way of thinking and working. I could really relate to two principles:

Do What You Love
If you really want to excel at something, do what you are passionate about.

Create Insanely Great Experiences.
Try to live as many different experiences as you can outside your working/living area. This will broaden your vision and the most amazing ideas will emerge from this.

I’m David Kurtz and this is how I work October 30, 2012

I’m very grateful to David Kurtz for agreeing to be the first genuine interviewee in this series.

If there are any people in the PeopleSoft world who haven’t come across David or his work, this is a brief introduction. David started out as an installer/infrastructure expert for PeopleSoft, but is now an independent contractor based in the UK. He has worked for most of the UK’s biggest PeopleSoft implementations, specialising in tuning PeopleSoft on Oracle databases. He is a published author (PeopleSoft for the Oracle DBA), has a blog for PeopleSoft DBAs and is a regular speaker on the conference circuit, having recently spoken at both UKOUG and OpenWorld).

Name: David Kurtz

Occupation: Independent Oracle/PeopleSoft Performance Consultant
Location: Maida Vale, London
Current computer: Toshiba Tecra (Win7, 8GB RAM, SSD)
Current mobile devices: HTC Desire, Samsung Galaxy Tab, both running Android

What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?
Google search has been a primary research tool for many years.  There is just so much stuff out there, the challenge is filtering the useful from the useless and the obviously untrustworthy.  After that, I need a sandpit database where I can create test cases and prototype code.  Without customer VPN, life would be very difficult.

Besides your phone and computer, what gadget can’t you live without?
Apple iPod, though it is only version 1.  iTunes is the best system I have found to organise classical music.  After that, the Samsung tablet with GPS was bought primarily as a navigational device for the bike, but I have since found another 42 critical uses for it.

What’s your workspace like?
This is office 2.0.  Earlier this year I finally cleared out the 20-year old computer desk and installed this desk and shelving system.  I also treated myself to a new KVM switch and monitor.

What do you listen to while you work?
Quite often I don’t.  When I do, it is often classic music on my PC or www.radioswissclassic.ch.  Of course, when there is cricket: BBC Test Match Special.

What PeopleSoft-related productivity apps do you use?
I need to be able to put performance analysis techniques into operation on customer sites, so I need keep things simple and use things that I know will always be in place everywhere.  Trying to installing software in the middle of a performance crisis can just be a distraction.  I use SQL*Plus to run SQL, and Notepad and vi to edit files.  I use Excel as a way of extracting and graphing performance metrics.

Do you have a 2-line tip that some others might not know?
You can embed a SQL query into an Excel spreadsheet, which can then can connect to the database via ODBC, run the query and extract the data directly into the sheet or even a pivot table.  This is a great way to collect and visualise performance metrics using software that everyone will have.

What SQL/Code do you find yourself writing most often?
Queries on the ASH repository, and the conversion between PeopleSoft record name and Oracle table name.

What would be the one item you’d add to PeopleSoft if you could?
Support for Oracle sequences.  It would mitigate all sorts of locking issues associated with PeopleSoft’s ‘homemade’ table based sequences, especially those affecting scalability of the integration broker.

What everyday thing are you better at than anyone else?
I know lots of people who know more about the inside of an Oracle database than me, and lots more people who know more about all sorts of aspects of PeopleSoft.  The difference is that I work across both of those disciplines. I am lucky that I get to see more examples of things going wrong, so I have become very adept at analysing performance issues that affect PeopleSoft and/or Oracle.  I like to think that I am quite good at applying ideas from other places to PeopleSoft problems.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Nullius in Verba (Take nobody’s word for it).  You can’t just trust anything simply because somebody, even with the best intentions, says or blogs that it is true.  You have to test for yourself in your circumstances. Consequently the answer to every question begins ‘it depends …’.

I’m Duncan Davies and this is how I work October 23, 2012

In a shameless copy of the excellent LifeHacker feature aimed at productivity gurus, we thought it’d be interesting to do something similar for the PeopleSoft world. Every week or so we’ll post an interview with some of the rock-stars of the PeopleSoft ecosystem.

I’m going to go first – not because I rate myself in the same echelon as those who will follow – but just to give everyone an idea of what to expect.

Name: Duncan Davies

Occupation: PeopleSoft Technical Consultant / CTO
Location: The Succeed Office, Croxley Green (Outer London)
Current computer: Lenovo Thinkpad (Win7, 16GB RAM, SSD)
Current mobile devices: Android ICS on an HTC One S, iPad 2
I work: Hard

What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?
I feel disconnected if I don’t have internet connectivity.  I don’t mind which device (laptop, iPad, mobile) but I like to be able to keep updated. I spend a lot of time in Google Reader (which provides 80% of the info I consume – the rest being from Twitter). I can tolerate some off-line time if my Pocket (ex-ReadItLater) queue is healthy – it’s great for the underground.

Within Succeed we collaborate heavily via HipChat and reluctantly use Sharepoint. We do have a collaboration platform that’s being built which will solve many of our Sharepoint woes, but it’s a little too nascent to detail yet.

Besides your phone and computer, what gadget can’t you live without?
I’m a devotee of the Evoluent Vertical mouse which has helped combat RSI, and I also switch to a cheap Bamboo tablet for a bit of variety.

What’s your workspace like?
It depends where I’m working (home, the Succeed office, client site). I’m experimenting with a makeshift standing desk at the moment, and quite enjoying it.

(I suspect Health & Safety will make me swap it for something more professional and less flammable soon.)

What do you listen to while you work?
I’m feeling nostalgic at the moment so a little Sunscreem and Manadalay. Of the more current artists, I probably find The XX and Hot Chip easiest to work to.

What PeopleSoft-related productivity apps do you use?
Aside from snippets and auto-completion in SQL editors, a lot of time is saved using the Chrome Developer tools or the Firebug extension in Firefox. I use Paint Shop Pro as my graphics editor of choice for altering the UI. Succeed also makes use of Jenkins for automating some of the infrastructure tasks.

Do you have a 2-line tip that some others might not know?
App Designer shows who updated each object last, but doesn’t do the same for PeopleCode. If you want to know who has been messing with your carefully crafted code then query PSPCMPROG for the last Update OPRID and Date/Time.

What SQL/Code do you find yourself writing most often?
Probably checking PSACCESSLOG to see who is using the system. I’m sure you can achieve a live version of this using WSLT but haven’t found the time to implement it yet.

What would be the one item you’d add to PeopleSoft if you could?
It would be nice if PeopleSoft style sheets were parameterised in the style of Sass or Less. Then the UI could be changed in a heartbeat.

What everyday thing are you better at than anyone else?
I’d like to think I keep my finger on the pulse pretty well.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
There’s nothing you can’t achieve if you have a great team around you.

Oracle OpenWorld Day 0 (Larry’s Keynote) October 1, 2012

We witnessed a great keynote from Larry this evening. Not only did he have some great announcements, but he was back on form as a presenter. He has ditched the brown suit, the nervous giggles and the ‘next slide’ mannerisms, this year’s Larry is a much more polished and authoritative figure.

He made four big announcements:

1) Oracle’s new Infrastructure as a Service offering

Oracle already have a SaaS offering (the applications) and a PaaS offering (Java, the database in the cloud etc), now they have an IaaS offering. They are the only vendor who covers all three layers (Amazon only has IaaS, Salesforce only has the other two). Larry sold it well “it’s our OS, our VM, on the fastest, most reliable, most secure systems, running on Exalogic, Exadata, Exalytics and SuperCluster networked together on an Infiniband network’.

Taking on Amazon Web Services is a bold move, with Amazon having a sizable head-start, and Microsoft and Google being ahead also. It is a new line of business for Oracle, albeit one that they had no interest in not too long ago. Back in 2010, Ed Screven (who introduced the sponsor at the start of the keynote) said ”We have no plans to build something like Amazon’s EC2 … we don’t plan to be in the rent-by-minute computer business.”

It’ll be exciting to start using it when it’s available.

2) The Oracle Private Cloud

Last year Larry announced the Oracle Public Cloud, this year he unveiled the Private Cloud. This service is designed for customers who are nervous about putting their data in the public cloud (financial or government clients, I would suspect, plus those in countries with strict data governance rules).

Essentially, Oracle installs the same servers that it would use for you in the Public Cloud, but in your data centre, within your firewall. Oracle will install, manage, maintain and upgrade the hardware. They’ll also install excess capacity, which you’ll only pay for if you use.

The private cloud is capable of running all oracle software, including PeopleSoft – so it’s not a Fusion only service – however it has clearly been designed with Fusion in mind (helping clients who are nervous about the cloud with Fusion-size hardware). Another neat feature is that you can move data back and forth between the public and private clouds (so you could use the public cloud for development, or for backup, or for extra capacity).

3) Oracle Database 12c is multi-tenant

Larry christened it the 1st multi-tenant database in the world. It was described as a single database comprised of many container databases that you can plug in, each allocated separate memory and processes.

Much was made of the fact that other vendors normally implement multi-tenancy in the application layer which is clearly more problematic. He named NetSuite (started in 1998) and Salesforce (1999) as having to run MT in the application layer as back then they didn’t have any other options … which rather amusingly made them sound like outdated legacy ERP vendors and Oracle sound like the bright, new tech.

He stated that the plugable database architecture uses 1/6 of the hardware resources and scaled to 250 instances, whereas traditional databases only scaled to 50.

4) Exadata X3

The final announcement was a new piece of hardware – which is apparently the hardware foundation for the Oracle Cloud. It’s essentially a server with an awful lot of memory, enabling you to reside your entire database in RAM. Larry used the phrase “if you thought the old Exadatas were fast, you ain’t seen nothing yet”. A single rack of X3 has 26TB of memory, and as they also compress it, it can store 220TB of data in a single X3 rack (so it’s not just your database in memory, but ALL of your databases in memory). You’ll virtually never use disk drives, although he conceded that they’d still be ok for images etc.

In some respects, this is following what some other companies have done, particularly SAP with Hana. However Hana only has 0.5TB of memory, compared with 26TB in the X3.

At a lower level, the 26GB is split between 4TB of DRAM and 22TB of flash memory heuristically managed so the hottest data goes in DRAM. He then compared against an EMC VMAX box (that EMC were recently demonstrating as trouncing the competition), and the X3 comfortably comes out on top. He also did a favourable comparison against IBM.

The cheapest configuration is 1/8 of a rack and that lists at $200k, but Larry said that his salesmen would be eager to give you a good deal so you’ll get it much cheaper.

The value of Oracle OpenWorld September 30, 2012

Where else would you get to meet this many PeopleSoft experts?

From L-R: me, Jim Marion (Jim’s PeopleSoft Journal), Graham Smith (Graham’s PeopleSoft Blog), Steve Elcock (Succeed Blog), Mark Hoernemann (Oracle’s PeopleTools Blog), Hakan Biroglu (Blogging about Oracle Applications)

Photo kindly taken by Jim’s beautiful wife Sarah.

An update on the PeopleSoft Weekly September 24, 2012

I posted a short while ago about the launch of the PeopleSoft Weekly, our free PeopleSoft-related weekly news bulletin. For those that are interested, I thought I’d give a quick update on its progress.

We started with some ‘internal beta’ dry-runs and our first public issue was 8th August.  In those 6 weeks the subscriber base has grown to more than 150 people. From that list just under half is from North America, 28% from Europe, 11% from Asia and 3% from Australia (plus some unknowns from gmail, hotmail, yahoo etc).

Looking at the domains in the email addresses it’s about 75% end clients, with the remainder being partners or Oracle employees themselves.

The software we’re using tells us that the industry average ‘open rate’ for newsletters is 15.4%, however the PeopleSoft Weekly has maintained an open rate of between 60% and 65% which is a good sign as it means that most of you are interested enough in our industry to read the newsletter. The ‘click rate’ averages about 50% also (industry average of 2.6%) so over half of you find something worth reading further.

In the most recent newsletter I can see that the most popular story was Oracle’s paper on the Interaction Hub and PeopleTools, followed by Logica’s hackathon and the Google Spanner database. Previous newsletters show that the subjects of User Interface, Fusion and most technical posts get good click figures. Topics that aren’t so hot are Workday and mobile related.

If you have any feedback I’d be happy to receive it. Please feel free to subscribe and pass it on to any interested colleagues.

PeopleSoft and IE9 redux August 9, 2012

I’ve blogged about an issue with PeopleSoft and Internet Explorer 9 before here, but in the latest version of Tools there’s a different – although probably related – problem.

Previously the issue was with IE9 adding a white margin to the top of the header (only on pages within the application, not on the homepage). This time the opposite has occurred, there is a negative margin applied to the header so it disappears off the top of the browser window:

This only happens in IE9, FireFox and Chrome are fine. I’ve only seen it occur in Tools 8.52.09, not earlier releases.

Looking at the code it appears that there’s an inline style applied:

Although the top margin for the pthdr2container div is set to zero in CSS, because this is an inline style it’s overriding it – and hence hiding part of the header. We need to stop this override happening, either by removing the code or by use of the CSS !important directive.

I suspect the issue is actually because of code inserted to prevent the ‘too much whitespace’ issue.

Coincidentally, the solution that Oracle support identified to fix the problem mentioned in my first post actually works for this one too, even though the description of the issue is for the ‘too much whitespace’ issue, not this one. Here’s the Oracle support post that shows the fix.

Looking at the HTML behind the page (in this case, Process Monitor), I can see the offending code:

I can’t see how this code is being inserted though.

PeopleSoft Weekly Newsletter August 7, 2012

We’ve started a free email newsletter to try to bring the latest and most interesting news from the PeopleSoft world to those that don’t have the spare time to regularly monitor RSS feeds full of blogs and news sources.

It initially started as a method of engaging the part of our company that wasn’t tech-savvy enough to use Google Reader etc, however we’ve found that there&