Protect ERP Performance

Instructions to protect the performance of an ERP application

ERP applications frequently lose the battle for bandwidth with file downloads, print traffic, web browsing, large email attachments, and other bandwidth-hungry applications. The result? Slow and unpredictable performance for these business-critical applications.

Follow these instructions to protect the performance of SAP, JD Edwards, or any other ERP application. If your ERP application is Citrix based, see Manage Citrix Performance instead.

Steps:

1. Enable traffic discovery and let PacketWise discover your ERP application and create a traffic class. If it doesn't appear on your network in a timely fashion, or you want to use your own matching-rule criteria for the traffic class definition, then create your own traffic class.
   
   For more ideas on classifying specific traffic, see Classification Hints and Examples.
   For background information, see Traffic Classification Overview and Traffic Tree Overview.
   

2. Create a partition for your ERP traffic class to carve off a portion of bandwidth to be available any time the ERP application needs it. The partition size should be at least sufficient to cover the number of users you expect with minimally acceptable performance. Consult Sizing a Static Partition for help in determining the partition's correct minimum and maximum sizes.
   
   Of course, you'll need to balance the performance needs of other mission-critical applications and divide resources appropriately. Remember that bandwidth reserved with partitions is never wasted. If unused, it's loaned to other applications in need.
   
   For background information, see Partition Overview.
   
   

3. Set a rate policy for your ERP traffic class with 0 guaranteed, burstable, no limit, at a high priority, relative to other applications (6, for example).
   
   For background information, see Policy Overview.
   

4. It's a good idea to contain applications that tend to consume more than their share of bandwidth in addition to performing the previous steps to protect traffic. Use the following recommendations to help implement this containment goal:

• Identify Performance Saboteurs — spot those troublesome applications that are undermining others' performance.
• Limit an Application's Total Bandwidth — limit the bandwidth-greedy traffic classes to a specific bandwidth cap.