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As always, networking and IT imitate life. (Or is it the other way around?) Networkers and application developers also get little sleep when their application deployment babies have nightmares. Back in 1996, I wrote about "Those Application Networking Nightmares" (see www.NetworkComputing.com/ 712/ 712colrobertson.html). I got a lot of letters confirming that others have seen similar terrifying cases of application networkability problems.

But a year and a half later, there's new data to report. Some of your nightmares may be ending. New three-tier architectures have arrived for PeopleSoft and Oracle applications. Like SAP R/3, these architectures should prove to be more network-savvy and let IT keep up with other responsibilities--and get some sleep. Unfortunately, as with all enterprise applications, moving to a whole new version can take months, if not years, of planning and implementation. These approaches are new, so I haven't received much production implementation feedback, but the general architecture and vendor-supplied data give me great hope.

PeopleSoft Goes Three-Tier PeopleSoft delivered a new three-tier architecture using network-friendly middleware toward the end of 1997. PeopleSoft 7.0 has a middle-tier environment based on BEA's TUXEDO. While PeopleSoft can run in traditional two-tier mode, the three-tier approach significantly enhances the networkability of the desktop to middle-tier application server connection. (PeopleSoft is also using BEA Jolt from its Web client, but that's another story--see "Web Middleware Tolls the Death Knell of HTTP," at www.NetworkComputing. com/714/714colrobertson.html.)

According to PeopleSoft's own testing, the 7.0 architecture offers WAN performance equivalent to old 6.0 LAN-attached situations. Only at 64-Kbps WAN speeds (including typical frame relay latency) does the client performance for typical transactions get somewhat slower than the two-tier LAN client. With built-in compression, the 64-Kbps performance improves a bit as well.

A major reason is that PeopleSoft now typically needs only one round-trip per field or screen to communicate a transaction update back to the application server. Moreover, the quantity of packets and bytes sent to the client is reduced in three-tier architecture as well. While not using asynchronous message-oriented middleware options in TUXEDO, the lightweight synchronous RPC (remote procedure call)-like interaction shouldn't suffer from the same problems as the older application.

The additional impact of bringing down some of the latest screen-formatting data to the client must still be considered, but version 7.0's caching functionality looks efficient. The first time users get updated screens, which can take some time to download. Likewise, while PeopleSoft has publicized sustained bandwidth capacity requirements (a 64-Kbps frame relay line servicing 30 users simultaneously), it's still too early for any customer implementation corroboration of these numbers.

I expect customers to migrate to three-tier implementations this year and next as PeopleSoft releases application functionality updates (version 7.5 in mid-1998) beyond 7.0's three-tier infrastructure. WAN locations may indeed be the best place to start with the three-tier approach.