How To Efficiently Run The Siebel Sfspartition Utility (Doc ID 2053514.1)

Last updated on JUNE 11, 2023

Applies to:

Siebel CRM - Version 8.1.1 [21112] and later
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Purpose

In this document it is described how the Siebel sfspartition utility can be run to achieve the partition result in the shortest amount of time.

Sfspartition is used to reorganize the Siebel filesystem and divide one or more large folders containing lots of files into multiple smaller directories.

In the default setup of the siebel filesystem, only one single folder (att) is used in order to store all attachments created.

This method is very convenient in terms of configuration as only one single folder needs to be managed, but can have some performance degradation issues when it comes to very large number of files.

Depending on how frequently attachments are added and then deleted again using sfscleanup utility, it can happen that the directory catalog structures become fragmented, resulting in slower file insert times.

When running a siebel filesystem with a folder volume larger than 5 million files, it has been observed that partitioning helps speeding up file operation.

Details might vary, also the exact number of files, since this relates on many factors like hardware, Filesystem type, grade of fragmentation and many more.

However if the decision has been taken to partition the folder, then the next challenge is to estimate the run time of this process.

Up to IP2013 design of sfspartition, this has to be run off-line, as the partition of the filesystem must be concluded, before the Siebel service can be restarted.

As the maintenance window for such a operation typically is limited to a weekend or even smaller, the challenge is to find a way how sfspartition can be completed as quickly as possible.

With the default approach running sfspartition from a siebel server where the file system is connected to a network share, it can take many hours to partition even a moderate sized filesystem of only a few million attachments.

With the approach described in this note, the elapsed time required to run sfspartition can be reduced to a minimum

It also shows a possible way to run sfspartition concurrently to a running Siebel system with a few modifications to the standard process as described in Bookshelf.