OAM 11g Webgate Tuning

Introduction

This post is part of a larger series on Oracle Access Manager 11g called Oracle Access Manager Academy. An index to the entire series with links to each of the separate posts is available.

People typically are introduced to Webgate tuning in one of two ways, either forced into it because of a crisis or actively preparing an environment to do some aggressive load testing.  Hopefully you are in the later group.  Unfortunately, there is still a lot of mystery behind tuning some of these Webgate parameters.  Creating a comprehensive article to cover all aspects of tuning is a real challenge.  That said, this article will be focused on what I feel are the most important tuning parameters; 1) Max Connections, including the relationship between Max Connections and Max Number of Connection, 2) the Failover Threshold, and 3) the AAA Timeout Threshold.  If you can grasp the concepts around these few important key parameters your success in getting better performance and stability out of the Webgates and Access Servers will greatly increase.

Oracle Unified Directory 11gR2PS3 Very Large Static Groups

Introduction

This post is about OUD and extremely large static groups where membership numbers exceed hundreds of thousands or even millions; yes I said millions.  I have been using Directory Services for over 15 years and the response I typically have for a customer that wants to use very large static groups is don't do it.  Then I steer them into dynamic groups or even suggest leveraging attributes from user entries.  In fact OUD has a great feature unique to itself called Virtual Static Groups that is kind of a hybrid between dynamic and static group, which has proved successful for past customers wanting very large groups yet get great performance.  That said, in this post I am going to break all the rules and say you can have static groups with even millions of members because of the new static group performance improvements that has come with OUD11gR2 PS3 (11.1.2.3.0).

Working with Oracle Unified Directory 11gR2 Transformation Framework

Introduction

If you have been using Oracle’s Identity Management software for at least the last few years you will probably be familiar or at least heard of OVD (Oracle Virtual Directory), which was originally acquired back in 2005 from a company called OctetString. OVD provides a vast number of great virtual features used to aggregate multiple backend data stores and present LDAP consumers a single unified Directory Server.  Beginning with OUD version 11.1.2.1.0, there have been a number of virtualization features added similar to what is provided in OVD.  This trend has continued through OUD 11.1.2.3.0 where features such as joining multiple backends was added.

The OUD Transformation Framework can do various things as presented in the latest documentation “Understanding the Transformation Framework”, but in order to help illustrate how this feature can really add value I recently worked with a customer where leveraging a Transformation Rule helped solved a problem. Because the existing documentation is either confusing or lacking, I decided to write this article to help learn more about the Transformation Framework and how to make it work. An important note I want to alert you is at the time this article was published in order to use the OUD virtualization features you are required to have what is called a “Oracle Directory Service Plus” license http://www.oracle.com/us/products/middleware/identity-management/oracle-directory-services/overview/index.html. If you have any questions about that please refer to your local Oracle Sales Representative.

Improve Oracle Unified Directory 11gR2 Search Performance with Index Entry Limit

Introduction

I am always looking for great tips that give big values; this one is no exception. This article is to help you understand how to tweak the index called “Index Entry Limit” to reap some dramatic ldapsearch performance improvements. I explain what this index is about, some of my own test results, how to determine the correct value, and finally how to make the index change to your OUD instance. This will be a tip you will definitely want to add to your OUD Ninja black bag.