The test environment, part of which which will eventually serve as the production system, included an MPP Reliant 1000 UNIX system running 22 SAP 3.0 application servers. The database resided on a separate SMP machine with a redundant database on a second SMP system for a backup. LoadRunner Controller ran on a Windows NT workstation and was used to trigger virtual users running on two additional Windows NT machines. About ten desktop PCs were utilized for script development before and during the testing process. From the start, tools from Mercury Interactive, SAP and Reliant were utilized to detect and diagnose problems at each stage of testing, so that engineers could make adjustments where necessary before the next phase.
Battles points out that their tests produced critical results almost immediately.
One of the first things we discovered was that we hadn't created a proper distribution of users across application servers. Performance problems signalled that we had to alter the way we were assigning users for high-use modules, such as Production Planning. Once we made certain adjustments, we saw a significant improvement in performance. Battles also mentions that LoadRunner's analytical tools were able to pinpoint slow transactions that were adversely affecting overall system response. By using various diagnostic techniques, the team isolated the steps that were taking the most time, and could then make the necessary changes.