Implementation Guide › Performance Tuning › Data Tier Performance › User Store Capacity Planning › How to Estimate a Sustained User Directory Search Rate › Use Authentication Guidelines to Estimate Directory Searches › Case 3: Responses and User Directory Requests

Case 3: Responses and User Directory Requests

A company has defined one SiteMinder policy with an OnAuth rule. This policy requires that a common name (cn) attribute response be returned when the policy fires. The company defines a Web Agent response to return this value and binds it to the SiteMinder policy rule.

The company uses the following formula to continue estimating the number of requests the Policy Server sends to the user directory to service the authentication load:

authentication_load * percent_of_policies * number_of_responses_per_policy = requests_for_authentication

• authentication_load

  Specifies the number of daily authentications for the application.

• percent_of_policies

  Specifies the total number of enabled policies, represented as a percentage, that are bound to a specific number of responses that return user attributes.

  Example: If there are four enabled policies, and one uses a response to return a user attribute, then twenty–five percent of the policies require a user directory search.

• number_of_responses_per_policy

  Specifies the number of responses bound to the SiteMinder policy.

• requests_for_authentication

  Specifies the number of user directory requests that the authentication load creates.

Result: 88,000 * 0.25 * 1 = 22,000 requests

The company uses this estimate to determine the total number of user directory requests required to service the daily authentication load.