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Request for Tender for NLA Networked Services

Appendix B - Current Workload Profile and Technical Environment

  • Scope
  • Overview of Current Services
  • Current Workload Profiles
    • ABN System Environment
    • ABN Workload Profile
    • ABN Relative System Resource Usage Characteristics
    • Relative Distribution Among ABN Online User Transaction Categories
    • Relative Distribution within the ABN Online 'Base' Category
    • Physical Implementation of the ABN User Transactions and Performance Considerations
    • Library Information Server Workload Profile
  • Technical Infrastructure
    • Host Processor Environment
    • Wide Area Networks (WAN)
    • Local Area Network (LAN)

B.1 Scope

The purpose of this Appendix is to assist Tenderers in sizing their tendered Configurations.

To this end, the Library is providing some workload analyses of its current services, focussing on some of the aspects that critically influence technical performance and availability of systems.

Specifically, the Library has chosen to present the following facets of workload analyses that relate to technical issues outlined in Chapter 5 (Section 5.5.3):

a) inter-relationship between simple and complex searches in online systems
b) the impact of update mechanisms and update volumes on online search performance
c) transaction management overheads: costs and tradeoffs
d) background tasks and housekeeping overheads: costs and tradeoffs.

Also included in the workload analyses are peak-to-average activity ratios, and relative ratios among different categories of transactions, eg enquiry, cataloguing, downline loading and interlibrary loan, provided as a potential aid to sizing the tendered platforms.

Rates of growth of different services have been presented, as an aid to estimating scalability requirements for the tendered platforms.

In addition to the workload analyses, the Library is also providing in this Appendix an outline of the current technical environment, to provide a context for the workload analyses.

Tenderers are to note that the information on the current technical platform does not imply a request for re-use of the current platform or parts thereof. This information has been provided for reference only as a measure of the range of functions currently in place and to indicate the scope of management facilities for controlling and monitoring the technical environment.

While the above may provide a broad technical perspective, the specific technical requirements for the new NSP environment are to be derived entirely from Chapters 1, 3, 4 and 5, with a special emphasis on systems management requirements as outlined in Chapter 5 (Section 5.7.8).

Current software categories are listed in Section B.4, TABLE B.5 and provide a background to the Library's management needs.

The following sections present an outline of the principal services currently offered by the Library, their workload profiles and analyses, and the technical infrastructure that the services operate within. The infrastructure presented in this Appendix incorporates host platforms, the Local Area Network (LAN) in the Library, and the external Wide Area Network (WAN) links between the Library and its Customer sites.

B.2 Overview of Current Services

The Library's current external networked services include two national bibliographic services: the Australian Bibliographic Network (ABN - Appendix A.1) and the National Chinese Japanese Korean Service(NCJKS - Appendix A.2) for Roman and non-Roman script materials respectively, a suite of citation databases collectively known as Ozline (hereafter referred to as the Hosted Databases; see Appendix A.3), and an advanced search facility Supersearch that augments the native searching capabilities of ABN. Though Ozline and the Supersearch component of ABN have a common user interface, the citation databases and the bibliographic database must be searched independently. All except two of the current citation databases are hosted by the Library on behalf of external Data Providers.

As a separate but related activity, the Library currently administers a World Wide Web Server (at http://www.nla.gov.au/) that hosts around 4800 text documents and 13000 pictorial documents and provides a search environment for its own documents, with full text and fielded search options. The Library is developing a search environment for the entire Australian domain or selected parts thereof based on ëmetasearchí technology ie interrogating multiple data sources with disparate search engines to return a unified set of results. At present, the Library Information Server also serves as the primary Entry Point for the Australian Government's Web based information.

In addition to the above, the Library provides external networked access to its Online Public Access Catalogue (which uses Dynix software) through the Internet and the Telstra packet switched network Austpac.

ABN, Supersearch and Ozline run in a MVS/CICS/ADABAS/STAIRS environment, while the NCJK system, the WWW Server and Dynix run on a multiple-host UNIX environment comprising DEC OSF/1 and IBM AIX Operating Software platforms. Internally within the Library, these platforms are interconnected both via a dedicated Token Ring link for figh throughput batch transfer as well as via a 10 Mbps Ethernet LAN.

The Ethernet LAN, with Microsoft LAN Manager running on it, provides an infrastructure for Office Computing and for on-site reader services through file serving, print serving, Groupware facilities and CD serving. Section B.4 shows the overall current Library networked configuration.

In terms of growth of business transactions, while all the services mentioned above have been experiencing growth over the past years, the actual rates of growth have varied considerably among the different components of services. Section B.3.4 shows the growth rates of some of these individual service components over the past three years.

B.3 Current Workload Profiles

Following are some of the capacity and performance characteristics, principally of the the current ABN environment (Sections B.3.1 to B.3.6), and of the Library WWW Server environment (Section B.3.7).

B.3.1 ABN System Environment

The current ABN environment, with its basic online component and the Enhanced Search component 'Supersearch', is run on an IBM 9672/R2 processor. The Ozline service is run on the same platform as ABN and Supersearch.

The total disk occupancy of ABN is currently 33.2 Gbytes, with an annual growth of 1.1 Gbytes, with data and index (including the indexes for the Supersearch offering) components occupying approximately 15.3 Gbytes and 17.9 Gbytes respectively, the major proportion of indices (14.1 Gbytes) belonging to the Supersearch component. The above figures represent total physical volumes occupied, and do not include any formatting losses such as inter-record gaps.

B.3.2 ABN Workload Profile

The ABN online base component (ie. the component with basic search facilities) is implemented on ADABAS DBMS and CICS TP Monitor, with the advanced search or Supersearch being based on STAIRS information retrieval product. The ABN processing profile is described below.

a) The ABN online environment is available every week day 8 am-8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST), and is executed over five MVS Address Spaces: one ADABAS Address Space; four CICS Address Spaces, one each for ABN basic, Supersearch, Ozline, and 'SOFI' (the menu-driven front-end for Supersearch and Ozline). The CICS Ozline Address Space encompasses some non-ABN applications, but the other four Address Spaces are run in a dedicated mode, with Region sizes between 5 Mbytes and 9.6 Mbytes, at different MVS 'Performance Group' levels ie. with different CPU Dispatching Priorities and different service eligibility characteristics. All five Address Spaces run in a non-swappable mode. Both ABN online base and Supersearch are made available on Saturdays in a minimal support mode. Online peaks are attained approximately from 11 a.m. till 3 p.m. EST on weekdays.
b) ABN Database updates of daily online activities are carried out in batch mode each night after the online system is terminated, and take approximately an hour and a quarter of elapsed time. Other ABN batch activities comprise high volume database loads/updates with agency MARC records, creation of institution-specific product outputs, and interlibrary loan (ILL) processing. These batch jobs are processed in weekly as well as in longer cycles, primarily from 10 p.m. onwards, with some jobs continuing through the online hours on the following day. At least one day a week and often up to three, CPU-intensive ABN batch jobs run in parallel with ABN online sessions, and results in a slowing down of online response times.
c) Housekeeping activities include:
  1. daily full backups of the ABN base database (i.e. without the Supersearch component) in a stand alone mode after the online system is brought down, currently requiring around 1 hour 15 minutes approximately using six cartridge drives simultaneously
  2. weekly and monthly backups of Supersearch that currently take from about 38 mins to 1 hr 20 mins using three to six tape cartridge drives simultaneously
  3. weekly Ozline backups, requiring around 15 minutes using three tape cartridge drives
  4. Database Administration including database maintenance and re-organisations, index re-build, transaction log processing etc, as needed.
All backups are carried out on a physical image basis using the System utility FDR. While base ABN backups require both ADABAS and CICS to be down, most of Supersearch volumes can be backed up while the search facilities are up.

B.3.3 ABN Relative System Resource Usage Characteristics

The total ABN system including the ABN online base component, Supersearch, ABN batch processing, SOFI, and Database Administration, consumes the major part of the Library's System resource capacity, sample figures having been shown in TABLE B.1. The remaining system resources are consumed by other Library applications: FMIS, miscellaneous batch and development/test activities, and systems support and maintenance workload.

The relative resource usage characteristics are summarised on the following pages, with the four Tables showing:

a) Monthly totals by type of applications/activities
b) A sample breakdown of the monthly ABN online activities into product categories such as Transaction Processor and Database Management System
c) Peak-to-average ratios for ABN online activities
d) Relative distribution among various categories of ABN online activities.

TABLE B.1 - ABN: Monthly Resource Usage by Applications/ Activities: 1996
Aug
1996
Nov
1996
Elapsed Time
(hours)
CPU

(hours)
Total I/O (disk & tape)
(mill.)
Print Lines
x 1000
Elapsed Time
(hours)
CPU

(hours)
Total I/O disk & tape
(mill.)
Print Lines
x 1000
ABN online Base Component 510 173 138 66 472 207 165 122
Supersearch online 506 13 9.2 469 12 8.7
Ozline(**) 1.2 1.1 n.a. 1.3 1.0 n.a.
SOFI 686 2.0 0.6 0 663 1.8 0.6 0
ABN batch (*) 63 18 3272 62 17 3394
Supersearch batch & admin 49 9 5.1 334 61 7.3 6.0 424
Ozline Data Creation (AMI & APAIS) 83 1.1 1.8 586 56 1.0 1.0 178
ABN DB Admin (*) 163 43 12 147 180 45 14 233
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