What protocol should I use for LoadRunner when recording Oracle's Primavera P6 PPM?

Question

LoadRunner/VUGen version: 9.5

Oracle Primavera P6 PPM version: 7.0.0

I used the protocol analyzer already. It recommends COM/DCOM, LDAP, Win Sockets.

I already tried recording my script using the following protocols:

1. All recommended protocols (combined, individually). I get an error on buffer5 (at load time) and it quits.
2. All three Oracle protocols (combined, individually) nothing worked. Some didn't even record anything.
3. A combination of one or more Oracle protocols with Win Sockets (results were the same as 1)

I looked on the HP.com site (kb, forums, etc) and got nowhere; An HP rep recommended Win Sockets (but that is the one giving me errors so I am not sure he understood the question or looked into it too hard.)

Any hints/tricks of what protocols I should use to record/replay?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Cultivate your architectural eye. The protocol analyzer will give you options, but not necessarily the best option, that is left to your expertise to discern.

Take a look at how the client and the server are communicating by using either a protocol analyzer or by examining the protocol handshake which takes place in the first handful of buffers exchanged in a pure winsock script. You can also find clues by looking at architectural documents for your primavera installation and figuring out what the next upstream component is from the client. Is it an app server? Is it a database server? What does each of these options mean for how my thick client may be communicating between the client and the server? When I combine that information with what I find by an examination of the sockets buffers or from a protocol analyzer what path can I define for the type of protocol?

Having a keen architectural eye is a critical skill for a performance tester. One thing which you can do to train your eye is to download as many different deployment guides for open source and commercial applications as you can find. These will usually document all of the tiers in a deployment of an application and how the application(s) communicate between the tiers (i.e., which ports will need to be opened).