The PeopleSoft Internet Architecture Virtualized and Simplified

I have given a few presentations and this one continues to get attention. I figured that it deserved a blog post.

Background

First of all from a systems point of view you should always avoid uniqueness's. Why, because you will forget the uniqueness and it come back to haunt you down the road. Because of this I am a strong advocate of “Standardized Templates” that should be done at what my colleges and I refer to as “Platforms”. As a platform system engineer, I view myself as a steward of the university computer system. Of this system I have several points of expertise and ownership. One of these is ensuring the PeopleSoft platforms work with the universities system. In the PeopleSoft Platform we run multiple applications and other supporting applications that must work within our computer system.

My experience with PeopleSoft applications starts in early 2001. I first virtualized the webservers in late 2005 and the application servers in early 2007 and have been following this methodology for most of the time I have worked with PeopleSoft/Oracle and it was made easier when virtualizing.

Standardized Template

I choose to create a standardized template to install from. This template allows me to make sure everything is the same and if something needs to be changed it is on the same location on all of my servers. This allows patches/fixes and even upgrades to be scripted. With a template that is tools only I can bring into existence any system on the same tools release by coping down the application specific files and running some scripts to change things such as the database the application server and process scheduler are pointed at and the cookie name in the webserver. Replicating an environment now takes hours where it uses to take days or weeks and the human installation errors are mostly removed.

Steps

Install the Operating System

Whenever installing a new system it is good to check out PeopleSoft's performance red paper but be mindful to not use it religiously. I question anything that does not make sense or I do not understand. I also like to avoid complicating the system to much.

Some files to pay attention to are

/etc/sysctl.conf -- Depending on your setup peoplesoft numbers are overkill and other system defaults are higher and that is fine

/etc/security/limits.conf

Install PeopleSoft Required Software

• PeopleTools (The version you will be using)

• Webserver Software

• Database Client

• Tuxedo

• Cobol

• Other general items

o Do not yet install any PeopleSoft applications

We will now be able to use this image to create other images for every application that you have

Configure the following

• Avoid hardcoding hostname/ip. Use localhost or 0.0.0.0 wherever possible

• Application Server

• Web Server

• Batch/Process Scheduler Server

• Monitoring

Test the configuration to make sure you did things correctly. You may use any database with the same tools level even without the application files as long as you are not running application specific processes.

Break the image and delete log files

Add “Change me” or something that you can script or look for in the configuration files that may need to be changed. These may include

• Database name

• Cookie Name

• Number of certain processes such as application servers booted

• In more complex environments like prod you may want to change where the web is pointed

o In certain non-prod environments we may point the web to the local application server

o Have a config file that will tell it what processes should boot and only boot what you want to use

Installing an Image - Apply Application Specific Files

• Take the tools level image that you have after deploying/copying the image

• Install the application specific files

• Point to an application specific instance in the application and batch server

• Boot up and you’re good

• Repeat for each application or server that you need