* Avoid finger-pointing; breed cooperation. Unless there is a gross misconfiguration, everyone involved can contribute to the solution. Since everyone has something to contribute, finger-pointing stops. It also helps put pressure on vendors or groups who state there is nothing for them to do, because essentially they are saying that there is nothing they can do to help. No one wants to say they don't want to help. For one group to place the blame entirely on another subsystem is usually not appropriate, demonstrates ill will, and will result in a suboptimal solution. When discussing solutions, look for every circle's group to contribute significantly. There must be a very good reason why a circle's group does not wish to participate in solving the problem.

* Any performance tools will help. Any respectable tool kit will provide the information you need to perform a solid 3-circle analysis. Basic operating system tools such as vmstat and sar, and Oracle tools such as Statspack are enough to perform a strong analysis. These tools make it easier to get the information you need. Your analysis can go deeper, and you have a higher trust level in the raw data. When this occurs, both your productivity and analysis confidence increase. Regardless of your tools, because you're performing a 3-circle analysis, its built-in multiperspective analysis safeguards you from making a mistake.

Let's look at two case studies constructed to demonstrate how you would actually perform the 3-circle analysis. The first case study is very simple, and the second is slightly more complex.