P6 EPPM Server Requirements

Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise
Project Portfolio Management

Performance and Sizing Guide

An Oracle White Paper
December 2011
Release 8.2

Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management Sizing Guide Page 2

Disclaimer
The following is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended
for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is
not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be
relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing
of any features or functionality described for Oracles products remains at the sole
discretion of Oracle.
Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project
Portfolio Management Performance and Sizing
Guide

Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 4
Architecture Overview.................................................................................................................. 4
Performance and Scalability Considerations ............................................................................. 6
Vertical Scaling (Scaling up) ................................................................................................... 6
JVM Heap Size .................................................................................................................... 7
Hardware Upgrade ............................................................................................................. 7
Operating System Upgrade ............................................................................................... 7
Horizontal Scaling (Scaling out) ............................................................................................ 7
Adding Application Server Nodes................................................................................... 7
Database Scaling and Clustering ...................................................................................... 7
Deployment Considerations ........................................................................................................ 8
Oracle Primavera P6 Web Client .......................................................................................... 8
Oracle Primavera P6 Server ................................................................................................... 8
P6 Services ........................................................................................................................... 8
Publication ........................................................................................................................... 9
Activity Gantt ...................................................................................................................... 9
Resource Management..................................................................................................... 10
Risks .................................................................................................................................... 10
P6 Web Services ............................................................................................................... 11
Deployment Categories .............................................................................................................. 11
Deployment Architectures ......................................................................................................... 12
Small Deployment Single Node ....................................................................................... 12
Application Server Configuration .................................................................................. 12
Progress Reporter or Web Services Server Configuration ........................................ 13
P6 Services Configuration ............................................................................................... 13
Database Server Configuration ...................................................................................... 13
Medium Deployment Clustered ....................................................................................... 13
Large Deployment Clustered ............................................................................................ 15
Other Factors ............................................................................................................................... 16
Enabling Technologies ............................................................................................................... 17
Oracle BPM............................................................................................................................. 17
Oracle BI Publisher ............................................................................................................... 17
OBIEE/ P6 Analytics ........................................................................................................... 17
Content Management System .............................................................................................. 17
Sizing Spreadsheet for BI Publisher Enterprise ............................................................... 17
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 17
Frequently Asked Questions ..................................................................................................... 19

INTRODUCTION
Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (EPPM) is a robust
and easy-to-use integrated solution for globally prioritizing, planning, managing,
and executing projects, programs, and portfolios.
This document outlines an estimate of hardware and software requirements for
deploying Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management product.
Three deployment scenarios are considered small, medium, and large and
recommendations for each type are provided. These recommendations should only
be considered as guidance for planning product deployment.
The following assumptions are made in this document:
A highly available environment is desired.
Database specific best practices for high availability, backup, and recovery
are being followed.
Load balancing specifics, software and hardware, is beyond the scope of
this document.
Many improvements and feature enhancements have been implemented in the
Primavera P6 EPPM R product. The P6 Services, Summarizer, and Leveler
modules are re-architected to be platform independent, robust, reliable, and highly
scalable. P6 R has also introduced a near real- time reporting solution called
Publication. There is a full whitepaper that describes this new feature in detail
available, it is titled P6 Extended Schema White Paper.

ARCHITECTURE OVERVIEW
Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management is a Java 2 Platform,
Enterprise Edition (J2EE platform) web application. The J2EE platform consists
for a set of industry-standard services, APIs, and protocols that provide the
functionality for developing multi-tiered, web-based, enterprise applications. The
division of tiers enables the application to scale according to customers
performance demands. Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio
Management uses the J2EE specification to build a flexible and scalable cross-
platform solution.
The main tiers of Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management
are:
The presentation tier A web server layer rendering JSPs, JavaScript,
Applets etc. to present a feature- rich UI accessible through various
supported browsers.
The middle tier A J2EE application server forms the middle tier where
all business logic of Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio
Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project
Portfolio Management v8.2 is a platform
independent solution for the Enterprise.

The division of tiers allows the application
to scale according to customers
performance demands.
Management is implemented. This layer runs the business logic for both
the P6 Web application and the P6 Services.
The data tier The data tier consists of a standalone or clustered RDBMS
environment utilizing Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) to integrate with
the middle tier.
The Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management application
resides on an application server, and the repository of the application data resides
on the database server. Figure 1 illustrates the architecture of Oracle Primavera P6
suite of Products.
Figure 1: P6 EPPM Architecture

Typical Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management
deployments consist of the following components:
A clustered web server load, balanced using a load balancing router or
software solution. End-users including administrators interact with
Primavera P6 through these Web servers.
A clustered J2EE application server on which Oracle Primavera P6
Enterprise Project Portfolio Management is deployed.
Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management uses a
RDBMS as its data repository. Depending on the dataset size, the database
P6 Web
Presentation Tier
Middle Tier
P6 Database
Data Tier
P6 Server
Oracle Business Process
Management
OBIEE
Content Management
System
(Oracle UCM, SharePoint)
P6 Professional
Compression
Server
P6
API
P6 EPPM Enabling Technologies
Add-on Components
P6 Reporting
Database
STAR
Dashboards Answers
Progress
Reporter
P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management
P6 Analytics
Oracle Business
Intelligence
Publisher
P6
Services
P6 Web
Services
server can be a standalone or a clustered server. In the following sample
architecture, the database is clustered. For optimized performance, the
application servers and RDBMS are co-located, for example, within the
same subnet.

Figure 2: Sample P6 EPPM Deployment

PERFORMANCE AND SCALABILITY CONSIDERATIONS
While there are multiple ways to achieve the desired performance and scalability
levels in Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management, the
performance considerations can be grouped in two categories: Vertical and
Horizontal. There are several advantages (and disadvantages) for choosing one over
the other. Organizations can decide which to use, based on:
The desired level of performance
Availability requirements
Short-term vs. long-term outlook of system usage
Seasonality and frequently used application areas

Vertical Scaling (Scaling up)
Vertical scaling involves adding additional resources, or upgrading resources on an
existing system. Vertical scaling is usually a good approach if the application
bottlenecks are processor and memory-related.
P6/PX
CONFIGURATION
WEB SERVER

P6 APPLICATION SERVERS
Database Server
(Cluster/RAC)
USERS
PX APPLICATION SERVERS
JVM Heap Size
The application objects (such as Projects, Activities, and Assignments, etc.) are
stored in the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) heap allocation. Most of these objects are
short- lived, and are periodically cleaned up by the JVMs garbage collection
mechanism. As the number of concurrent users increases, performance and
scalability is affected by the available heap space in the JVM. Increasing the heap
size is an easier way to achieve the desired performance and scalability.
Hardware Upgrade
Desired performance and scalability can also be achieved by upgrading the CPU,
adding extra cores, upgrading to faster I/O devices, and upgrading from a 32-bit to
64-bit hardware. The recommend hardware is 64-bit.
Operating System Upgrade
Another way to achieve the desired performance level is by doing such things as:
upgrading to latest versions of the operating system, installing latest patch updates,
and upgrading from 32-bit version to a 64-bit version. The recommend hardware is
64-bit.
While vertical scaling is easier to achieve, it does not address the availability
requirements. If the desired level of availability is high, then vertical scaling alone
will not be sufficient.

Horizontal Scaling (Scaling out)
As the demand for applications grows, additional nodes can be added to an existing
application server cluster to handle the increased system load. For high availability
requirements, horizontal scaling is the better option.
Adding Application Server Nodes
As the usage of applications grows within the organization, adding additional server
nodes is the best way to achieve required performance and scalability. If the
organizations business model exhibits seasonality or periodic variations, the system
load will fluctuate accordingly. For example, the average load on the system may
quadruple during month end closing, or the plant may be closed for a week every
quarter for maintenance. Adding or removing application server nodes should be
considered to manage seasonality. To mitigate risk of degraded performance and
undesired downtime, it is crucial to understand the business cycles of the
organization and to plan for the required level of performance, availability, and
scalability.
Database Scaling and Clustering
Database server scaling options are available, and have been widely adopted and
implemented. Database clustering enables multiple nodes in a clustered system to
mount and open a single database that resides on shared disk storage. This
configuration provides high availability in the database environment. One example
of database clustering is Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC).
To mitigate risk of degraded performance
and undesired downtime, it is crucial to
understand the business cycles of the
organization and plan for the desired level
of performance, availability and scalability.

DEPLOYMENT CONSIDERATIONS
Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management performance
depends on the load faced and response characteristics of each tier discussed in the
previous section. Performance- affecting factors are identified and discussed in the
following sections. These factors should be considered during deployment
planning.

Oracle Primavera P6 Web Client
The number of concurrent users accessing the system directly affects the web client
performance. Performance is also affected by the activities being performed within
each user session (for example, Activity Gantt, Resource Planning, Scheduling,
Leveling, Summarizing, and Reporting, etc.). Concurrent users and their system
activities largely affect CPU and memory requirements of the application server.

Oracle Primavera P6 Server
The Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management server is a
J2EE application that uses J2EE technologies for interaction with end-users, target
systems, database repository, etc. Following are some areas of server operation that
need to be considered during Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio
Management sizing.

P6 Services
In Primavera P6 R8.2, the service process can run as a standalone application for
better performance and scalability, and is platform independent. Services are
responsible for executing real-time and scheduled application jobs. The following
application areas are processed as jobs:
Summarizer
Scheduler
Leveler
Publications

For most deployment categories, we
recommend setting up a dedicated
application server node for running job
service.
The Services are capable of processing large number of projects, activities, and
resource assignments. The number of concurrent jobs largely affects the CPU and
memory requirements of the application server and the load on the database
servers.
For medium to large deployments, setting up a dedicated application
server node for the services is recommended. This application server
should not be part of the cluster that processes HTTP requests from the
web client. In addition, turning off the services on the application servers
in the cluster, which are serving web client requests is recommend.
Horizontally scaling out by adding more dedicated Services application
server nodes can address increased performance requirements.
For long- running jobs, off-peak hours job scheduling is recommended.
For example, scheduling a job to run, when the load on the system is low.
For the initial run of the Publication Services, after install or upgrade of
P6, running off-peak hours such as over the weekend is recommended.
For heavily data- intensive jobs (such as summarizing an entire EPS)
sequential, rather than concurrent scheduling, is recommended. For
example, do not schedule two large EPS summarization jobs to run at the
same time.

Publication
The newly designed Publication Services allows for near real time reporting of
Project data. The following factors could impact the response time and resource
for Publication:
Number of Activities/Assignments
Length of project
Length of Publication date range
Length of Activities/Assignments
Number of Financial Periods

Activity Gantt
The Activity Gantt feature underwent scaling efforts to help large deployments.
Small deployments also benefit from this enhancement because of optimization in
code to help load data quicker. Releases prior to 8.1 had a limit that enabled the
user to load 15k activities. Post 8.1 that limit has been raised to 100k activities.

The following factors could impact the response of the Activity Gantt feature:
Number of Activities/Assignments
Number of activity Relationships
Number of currently opened projects
Project length
Depth of WBS Hierarchy
Activities/Assignments Length
Amount of client side memory allocated to the JRE and applets
Other load on the application server
Resource Management
The Resource Management feature allows for a more interactive resource manage
approach. Resource management is easily and intuitively accomplished. The
following factors could impact the response time of the Resource Management:
Number of Resources
Number of Resources Assignments to Activities
Filter usage
Project length
Depth of WBS Hierarchy
Risks
The Risk feature has been completely redesigned to enable a high confidence level
of success by evaluating factors such as cost and scheduling. The following factors
could impact the response of the Risk feature:
Number of Risks
Number of Activity Assignments to Risk
Number of Risk Scoring Matrix assignments
Number of Response Plan assignments

P6 Web Services
The P6 Web Services platform employs Web-based technology to handle requests
from external programs. External client programs use P6 Web Services by creating
a request and sending it to the application server using the SOAP (Simple Object
Access Protocol.) Having received the request, P6 EPPM uses the appropriate
business logic required to service the request. The client application need not
understand the semantics of this processing. Responses or requests from P6 EPPM
simply follow the same path in reverse.

P6 Web Services can be divided into four categories of services:
Business Object Based Services (CRUD operations)
Job Service
Spread Service
Import and Export Services
Many data set characteristics can impact the performance of Web Services. All
requests should make use of meaningful filters to reduce the amount of data
returned by the service. Other aspects that can affect the performance of Web
Services are:
System usage P6 features in use
Environment
Level of hardware

DEPLOYMENT CATEGORIES
Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management deployments can be
classified into three categories i.e. small, medium and large. Some of the factors
considered for defining these categories are outlined in the following table.

These factors influence the hardware and software specifications during Oracle
Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management deployment.

Deployment Categories
Small Medium Large
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

O
b
j
e
c
t
s

Projects 200 1,000 50,000
Active Users 50 100 200
Activities 100,000 1,000,000 5,000,000
Activities per
project
5,000 10,000 20,000
Resources 500 1,000 4,000
Resource
Assignments
100,000 1,000,000 5,000,000
Resource
Assignments per
project
5,000 10,000 20,000
Risks 100 500 2,500

Table 1 Deployment Categories

DEPLOYMENT ARCHITECTURES
Small Deployment Single Node
This deployment model is suitable for a business unit or a division within an
organization. It also is useful for setting up a pilot with the intent of moving to a
medium or large size deployment. This deployment can achieve the desired
performance or scalability, but does not address the high availability requirement
due to single point of failure.
Application Server Configuration
CPU Intel Xeon 5000 series (Quad Core 3.46 GHz) or equivalent
Java Heap Size 2 GB
Drive Space 25-50 GB
Operating System Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL) 64-bit or Windows server
64-bit or equivalent

Progress Reporter or Web Services Server Configuration
Java Heap Size 2 GB
Drive Space 10 GB

P6 Services Configuration
Java Heap Size 4 GB
Drive Space 20-50 GB, depending on log historic log storage

Database Server Configuration
RAM 2 GB
Drive Space 50 GB
Operating System OEL 64-bit or Windows server 64-bit or equivalent

Medium Deployment Clustered
Assuming that high availability is desired for a medium deployment, the application
server is clustered. If high availability is not a requirement, desired scalability can be
achieved vertically by adding equivalent units of memory and CPU.
The clustered nodes can exist on the same physical machine as separate node
deployments when a high-end machine is used for the application server. A load-
balancing router can be used to load balance between the nodes for optimal
performance.

Java Heap Size 4 GB per node
Drive Space 10 GB

Drive Space 10 GB

Drive Space 50-75 GB, depending on log historic log storage

RAM 4 GB per node
Drive Space 100 GB

Large Deployment Clustered
Assuming that high availability is desired for a large deployment, the application
server is clustered.
A large deployment involves a high system load due to such things as large data
sets, processing, concurrent users, etc. To handle this load, adding a dedicated
clustered web server and a clustered database server, such as Oracle RAC Database,
is recommended. Due to the intense computations typically seen at large
deployments, a large JVM heap is highly recommended. Horizontally scaling out by
adding more nodes can address increased performance requirements. It is not
necessary to have application servers on different machines. Multiple nodes with
Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management can be deployed on
the same physical machine, assuming that the machine is a high-end one and has
adequate physical memory and CPU.

CPU 2 Intel Xeon 5000 series (Quad Core 3.46 GHz) or
equivalent
Drive Space 25-50 GB

Drive Space 25-50 GB GB

50-100 GB, depending on log historic log storage
Operating
System
Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL) 64-bit or Windows server
For optimal system performance,
deploying Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise
Portfolio Management application on a 64-
bit architecture is highly recommended .


CPU 2 Intel Xeon 7000 series (Quad Core 2.66 GHz) or
equivalent
RAM 8 GB per node
Drive Space 200 GB

OTHER FACTORS
This document covers the performance of the overall Architecture of the P6
EPPM configuration. However, the factors around the database setup play a very
important role on performance. The following factors could impact the
performance of the Database:
Hardware architecture and OS
NIC (number of NICs, speed and duplex settings)
Number of database instances on a server (dedicated vs. shared)
Disk storage system performance (I/O speed, Buffer, Mirroring)
Table space layout and extent sizing
Table data, index, and lob distributions on table spaces
Table and index fill factor definition
Database block sizing
Connection management (dedicated vs. MTS)
RAM allocations (automatic, SGA, PGA, Shared Pool, Buffer Pool, etc.)
CBO optimizer parameter configuration setting
Database table and index statistics gathering mechanism and frequency
Anti-virus software
Additional database jobs

ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES
Oracle BPM
For creating and managing business processes and workflows, Oracle Primavera P6
EPPM utilizes Oracle Business Process Management (BPM) technology. For
information on hardware and sizing requirements please refer to Oracle BPM
documentation, available on the following Web site:
http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/bpm/index.html
Oracle BI Publisher
For enterprise reporting, Oracle Primavera P6 EPPM utilizes Oracle Business
Intelligence Publisher. For information on hardware and sizing requirements please
refer to BI Publisher documentation, available on the following Web site:
http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/ent-performance-bi/bi-publisher-
066551.html
OBIEE
For enhanced analytical and advanced reporting capabilities, Oracle Primavera P6
EPPM utilizes Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) product.
For information on hardware and sizing requirements, please refer to OBIEE
documentation, available on the following Web site:
http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/ent-performance-bi/enterprise-edition-
066546.html
Content Management System
For document management and collaboration, Oracle Primavera P6 EPPM can be
configured to use Oracle Universal Content Management (UCM) OR Microsoft
SharePoint. For information on hardware and sizing requirements for Microsoft
SharePoint please contact Microsoft. For information on hardware and sizing
requirements for Oracle, please refer to Oracle UCM documentation, available on
the following Web site:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/content-
management/overview/index.html

Sizing Spreadsheet for BI Publisher Enterprise
Documentation can be found on Oracle MetalinkNote -948841.1

CONCLUSION

Following a systematic approach to evaluating, planning and testing the architecture
for your Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management deployment is the
only way to assure a successful deployment. With careful examination of the
performance and scalability objectives, system availability requirements, short-term
versus long-term outlook of system usage, seasonality, data structure, and
frequently used application areas, the appropriate hardware choices can be made
early in the process.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How much hardware does P6 installation require? Tables that describe the
recommended hardware for each deployment size are described earlier in this
document.

How much disk space does P6 require? The P6 application requires little space.
However, you do need enough space to run the Application Server software (such
as WebLogic). You will also need enough space to keep historic log files. You
must also ensure that you have the appropriate amount of disk space on you
database server. Recommendations can be found in the tables described earlier in
this document.

Can P6 run in a cluster? Yes, P6 can run in a cluster.

Do the P6 Services affect performance? Yes. P6 Services do affect performance
for the P6 Web application. The difference in performance depends on some of
the following factors:
Hardware size
Data size
Service recurring schedules
P6 feature usage
Data change rate

Should P6 Services be installed on the same server as Primavera P6 Web?
Oracle Primavera recommends installing the P6 Service on a dedicated box.

Will I need more space when upgrading to P6 8.2 with Publications? Yes.
The Publication feature requires additional drive space on the database. A good
estimate is to calculate your currently used disk space and double it.

How can I make P6 Service run faster? You can make the P6 Service faster by:
Making sure the P6 Services are installed on a dedicated server.
Separating the P6 Services to multiple servers. If performance is a
concern, it would be a good idea to install all global services on one server
and the Project Publication service on its own dedicated server.
Increasing default thread counts, when working with Publication Service
this only affect the Project service.
Verifying that the database has the optimum settings for efficiency:
o Enough memory
o Fast disks
o No other database instance running
Should the database be installed in a shared database environment? No.
Oracle Primavera recommends a dedicated Database Server for the P6 Suite.

What is the best way to monitor performance for P6? You can use Oracle
Enterprise Manager to monitor many aspects of the database (Oracle Database
only) as well as OS and WebLogic exposed metrics.

What is Considered Acceptable Network Latency for P6? Enterprise
environments should have low latency networks, meaning ping times should return
in less than 1ms for best P6 performance. P6 has been tested within simulated
latency environments and offers acceptable performance up to 100ms (round trip
browser to application server). Higher latency environments have been tested, but
as with all multi-tier enterprise products, higher network latency will result in slower
response of the software suite.

How much disk space will the database schema require for table spaces?
You can find the answer for this early in this document in the Deployment
Architectures section.

Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management Performance and Sizing Guide
December 2011

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Redwood Shores, CA 94065
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Worldwide Inquiries:
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