This book is aimed at helping Oracle DBAs understand and use PeopleSoft technology. For the typical DBA, the introduction to PeopleSoft is likely to include some surprises, not all of them agreeable. Many—if not most—DBAs have to deal with many different databases, usually supporting different applications. Often they will want to be able to administer all databases in a standard fashion. However, this is not always possible with a PeopleSoft system.
Most surprising to Oracle DBAs may be what is missing. In a vanilla PeopleSoft database, there is only minimal use of Oracle-specific features and Oracle-specific SQL constructions. There are no referential constraints. Very few optimizer hints are used, and only where there is no alternative. All PeopleSoft processes connect to the one database schema that contains all the database objects, so security is maintained by the application, not the database. Oracle sequences are never used; instead, sequence numbers are generated using ordinary tables.
In order to avoid the use of platform-specific SQL constructions, most of the delivered SQL conforms to a lowest common denominator subset of SQL accepted by the supported RDBMS platforms (Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, DB2, Sybase, and Informix). The data model is kept uniform across all platforms, although there are variations in the column data types between platforms. There can be some differences in the indexing between platforms. There is some capability for different code on different platforms in PeopleSoft, but its use in the delivered product is kept to an absolute minimum.
Hence, PeopleSoft is sometimes described as a platform-agnostic product. It is my experience that this approach generally does not produce optimal performance. It may have assisted PeopleSoft to manufacture and maintain a single product on many platforms, but it does not help PeopleSoft customers to achieve optimal performance from their systems on their chosen database platform.
In PeopleTools 8, there has been some expansion of the areas in which it is possible to introduce database-specific features and code. From PeopleTools 8.1, database triggers were used to write audit records, although these have to be enabled by customization. Database instrumentation was added to PeopleTools 8.50. Active Data Guard is supported from PeopleTools 8.51.
The other area of confusion for typical Oracle DBAs, particularly those familiar with Oracle’s management tools, is that unless certain DBA tasks are incorporated into the application with PeopleSoft’s Application Designer, they may be lost. Consequently, this can restrict the effectiveness of generic Oracle administration and monitoring tools.
In short, to be effective, DBAs must become PeopleSoft aware. They must work with the PeopleSoft development tools and the application, rather than continually fighting against it—otherwise it will bite back! One of the goals of this book is to outline these areas for DBAs, providing workaround techniques where possible.