Slow response, minimum specs?

I a running a server 2003 environment on a p4 2.4ghz with 1gb of ram and a sata raid 5. Its not really designed to be a server but it has done its job well in the past. I have noticed while using ayanova it usualy takes at least 5 seconds and sometimes up to 15 to open piece of data such as a service workorder or a memo or a parts request etc. I notice similar lag with saving data. I also notice there is about a 10 minute gap between the time i send a memo and the time a notification is sent out to the recipiant. Its not the biggest problem in the world but it gets a little anoying. So what i am woundering is if there are minimal specs for the program? Am i running a fast enough server? Do you have any recomendations as to configurations that may speed up my performance? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

David

Hi David

Please refer to the AyaNova v3 Manual section “Performance Optimization” starting on page 564 which identifies a number of things to look out for that can hamper performance.

If a large amount of data is being displayed, I can see there be a slight wait time (i.e viewing the Service Workorders grid that displays all workorders ever made with no filters set) - but you state you get an actual count of 5 to 15 seconds just opening a memo - which itself is a very small piece of data. Therefore that would more likely point to an issue with a bottleneck occurring between the computer making the request to the server, which than responds with the requested data.

In addition to refering to the Performance Optimization section of the AyaNova v3 Manual, it would be suggested to determine where the bottleneck is occurring by identifying whether occurs only at networked computers, only at a specific networked computer, or at the server itself.

Here are some things to check:

  • Any anti-virus program should not be set to scan the AyaNova database.

  • if using the network Firebird configuration, ensurehyperthreading is not enabled in the BIOS

  • is performance like this on the actual server itself, or only you are experiencing this on networked computers? Perform the exact same steps on the server (count off times) and compare with the exact same steps on different networked computers.

  • you might have cabling issues, ora NIC or hub is causing unneccesary chatter - requiring network packets to be resent numereous times between the server and networked computers.

  • The server may be overloaded and therefore requests for data are queued -what else is running on the server that is using up resources?

  • Check the server’s performance - is there low availalable memory, is there a constant high CPU usage?

  • If using the network Firebird configuration, is the AyaNova.exe.config on the networked computers using the server’s IP address or the server’s name?Compare speed using one versus the other.

These are just a few to look into to identify where the actual bottleneck is occurring.

  • Joyce

ITGOD (3/7/2006)I a running a server 2003 environment on a p4 2.4ghz with 1gb of ram and a sata raid 5. Its not really designed to be a server but it has done its job well in the past. I have noticed while using ayanova it usualy takes at least 5 seconds and sometimes up to 15 to open piece of data such as a service workorder or a memo or a parts request etc. I notice similar lag with saving data. I also notice there is about a 10 minute gap between the time i send a memo and the time a notification is sent out to the recipiant. Its not the biggest problem in the world but it gets a little anoying. So what i am woundering is if there are minimal specs for the program? Am i running a fast enough server? Do you have any recomendations as to configurations that may speed up my performance? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

David

Hi David, just a couple of points I wanted to make sure we’re clear after reading your post:

Yes that system is, on paper anyway, more than fast enough to run AyaNova. The slowest system we tested on here is a classic Pentium 2 450mhz with 1gb of ram. It’s our baseline system for testing performance on older hardwareand AyaNova on it performsway faster than what you describe on that system. You have a serious bottleneck somewhere there.

Opening a memo should be a split second operation on a local area network. The service work order form is the slowest of any of the forms in AyaNova to open because it has hundreds of controls on it that are selectively displayed or not depending on the type of work order and what you click on as you go through it, but even it should load in much less than 1 second.

Hopefully the troubleshooting steps in the manual that Joyce directed you to will reveal the problem on that count.

The other thing I wanted to make sure was clear is that a notification is not sent immediately when you do an operation in AyaNova that generates a notification. Notifications are created immediately in a waiting table in the database and every 5 minutes the notification processor checks that table and processes accordingly.

On the other end of the notification, if a user is using a popup type notification to receive on in AyaNova it’s also polled about every 5 minutes.

So in theory there can be up to a 10 minute delay between the moment a new notification is generated and the moment it pops up in AyaNova.

The polling delay at the receiving end only applies to popups in AyaNova, if you were to send an SMS notification (for example) then it would pop up on their cell phone or pager as quickly as the cell company takes to process the notification email when they receive it.

The reason there is a 5 minute polling interval in the notification sending process (Generator) is because it’s more efficient to do them in batches. If they are done immediately there is a tremendous potential load put on the whole system be it the database, the email server etc.

The same goes for the popups, every time AyaNova checks for popups it’s not able to do anything else for that split second it takes, so if it checked too often you would see a delay in responsiveness within AyaNova itself as you are using it.

I went through the other day and did a much more complete check over of my systems to see if i could pin point the problem. To start with i experiance the same delays on every computer on the network including the server itself. Also my delay times were probably a little exadurated for some items. I noteced that memos only took about 2 seconds to appear but opening and actual work order or quote or item often took around 5 seconds to open. Im not sure if that is still considered slow but it is a little anoying to me when i have to go through alot of things and open them to make changes. (im not talking about delays when displaying the service work order grid) Also i notced that notifications took on average 8 minutes to appear after an event has occured. So i took a look into the performance on my server and foudn that nothing was really overburdening my cpu and my hard drives were performing excelently. However i did notice that my ram was nearing capacity and i am dumping quite a bit of things over into the page file which i imagine may be the cause of the problem. I will try putting some more ram into my server as soon as possible and let you know how it goes. I was also woundering if part of the bottleneck could be related to the querying abilities of the firebird server? I have checked through the manual and complied with all of the recomendations for performance in it but i would still like to know if you think i would notice any significant benifit by switching to a sql server. Again my main purpose for this little quest is 1: that i often have to make large scale changes to things such as inventory items or open all pm’s and make minor changes and 2: i would like to be able to use the notifications as an internal messaging system in a way so that i can rely on messages to be delivered quickly but that isnt all that important since i can use my exchange e-mail to accomplish that if i must.

On a side note: I was woundering if it would be possible to make the panes editable. What i mean is when you click to view the service workorder pane and you select all of the columns you would like to view is there a way so that i could edit some or all of those records without having to actualy open the work order? This would be especialy helpful when it came to making minor changes to things like active items, or onsite labor and would be a work around to some of the performance issues associated with opening the amount of data associated with a work order.

Sory i read your second post after posting. I understand the reason for the delay in notifications and i can deal with that, but it seems my timeings when opening work orders and other things is still a bit slow. I will try resolving some memory issues to see if that helps the problem

Thank You

David

ITGOD (3/8/2006)actual work order or quote or item often took around 5 seconds to open. Im not sure if that is still considered slow but it is a little anoying to me when i have to go through alot of things and open them to make changes. (im not talking about delays when displaying the service work order grid)

No doubt, that’s way below the normal time, normally there is a delay but it’s the kind that you notice it being just a fraction slower to load a workorder form than another type of form. By delay I’m still talking split seconds here, way too short to even time it by hand really.

However i did notice that my ram was nearing capacity and i am dumping quite a bit of things over into the page file which i imagine may be the cause of the problem.

Yes, absolutely this is a serious problem and almost certainly the cause of the slowdown. The very instant you touch the paging file everything is going to basically come to a halt. If Firebird (or any database server for that matter)can’t deliver from a ram cache then it’s going to be painfully slow. I have never seen Firebird use more than 50mb of ram for even the largest AyaNova databases we tested here. Is that machine a dedicated server or is someone using it as a workstation? Is something else memory intensive running on it? 1gb should be plenty for Firebird hosting an AyaNova database. Open the task manager and just double check how much ram everything is using.

Be sure to profile it’s memory usage, then reboot it completely and profile it again to see if it’s a problem that creeps up or is ongoing right from the start.

The fact that it’s slow for everyone on the network points directly at the server and any shortage of memory that causes even the slightest dip into hard drive page file is an absolute no no for a server of any kind.

I will try putting some more ram into my server as soon as possible and let you know how it goes.

I’m not confident this will make any difference, you already have plenty of ram for Firebird hosting AyaNova, unless you have some other apps that have to run on it that consume a tremendous amount of memory. It’s very odd, we have whole web servers with SQL server on them that are using less memory than that. I wouldn’t put any more ram into it until you pick through and find out why it’s using so much to begin with, task manager will give you a good general start on that process.

I was also woundering if part of the bottleneck could be related to the querying abilities of the firebird server? I have checked through the manual and complied with all of the recomendations for performance in it but i would still like to know if you think i would notice any significant benifit by switching to a sql server.

In our testing SQL server is only slightly faster than Firebird and the slowness you are seeing is not at all typical, SQL server uses a LOT more ram than Firebird so I’m guessing it will be even slower.

On a side note: I was woundering if it would be possible to make the panes editable. What i mean is when you click to view the service workorder pane and you select all of the columns you would like to view is there a way so that i could edit some or all of those records without having to actualy open the work order? This would be especialy helpful when it came to making minor changes to things like active items, or onsite labor and would be a work around to some of the performance issues associated with opening the amount of data associated with a work order.

When it’s running as fast as it should be you wouldn’t notice this to be an issue at all. A typical AyaNova 3 with a database server of any kind should be literally keeping up with you as fast as you can click on things to change them. Once you get the speed issue sorted out I’m guessing this won’t be an issue for you at all.

I actualy did go through my proccesses and find what is bogging down the system. The firebird server itself is only using about 25mb of my memory so its fine. The problem is that the server is and exchange server and the information store takes large amounts of memory due to the e-mail traffic through it. Also i am hosting both an internal web site and an internal website off of the server as well. The internal website takes a fare share of memory to operate all of its web parts and what not. Lastly i have a sql engine running which im not positive but i believe it is associated with share point portal. Basicly since i am running small business server, the server is designed to do everything and eliminate the the need for extra servers, mater of fact small business server doesnt much like the presence of other servers except for standard file servers. So my options come down to get a dedicated server or turn my current one into a real server. So to start with i will probably up the memory a bit and see if that helps, unless i find a way to run ayanova on a completely dedicated machine.

Thanks

David

Hi David

As you say AyaNova itself is only using about 25MB of memory - whereas everything else is just pounding that computer’s resources.

You do not need a “server” operating system or a computer that is classified as a “server” to run the network Firebird configuration and host the AyaNova database.You don’t need a heavy decked out computerwith topend processor/memory/harddrives-what you would want is a computer that is reliable, can be backed up as per the backup instructions in the AyaNova v3Manual on backup,and isn’t being overloaded by other programs and resources - especially if your AyaNova data is important to you.

It does sound as you defintely need more memory in your server for all the other programs and resources that are running on it regardless whether the network Firebird configuration and AyaNova database is setup on another computer or not.

  • Joyce

John and Joyce,

Thanks for all of the info. We are looking at setting up a separate dedicated machine to strictly run our AN database. Because our small business server is under a fairly heavy load we are planning to upgrade the components in it to Xeon based processor and a board that is designed to sustain the heavy I/O requirements of a multifunction server. We will use the existing 2.4 P4 and board to build the AN “server” as the P4 2.4 came about before hyperthreading. This should allow us to closely monitor performance and have a few hundred (thousand?!) less variables to sift through when experiencing perfromance issues. A question I did have is we use an application called Acronis True Image Server to make image based backups of our servers and the PC’s we bring into our shop to work on. Is AN capable of being backed up with an imaging program like this or Ghost?

Hi Mike

I did aquick check on their websiteon compatibility with databases for the Acronis True Image Server to see if they confirm it is compatible with backing up a live Firebird database or a live SQL database (depending on the network configuration you set up for AyaNova), but it is not directly listed on their site.

Same with a quick check of Norton Ghost - I couldn’t find direct confirmation on their web site regarding backing up a live Firebird or SQL database.

It would be recommended to contact these software developers directly to confirm this as in most cases directly backing up a live database can harm the database, and/or not prevent it from beingrestored.

If using the network Firebird configuration, Firebird states the database itself is not to be backed up directly. The database file itself can only be directly backed up or moved ifall users are out of AyaNova and the Firebird database serveris itself shut down. To allow live access without having to shut down for a backup, a batch file is included in the AyaNova 3 program directory to assist in making a “snapshot” of the database while it is live, and the snapshot is to be backed up. Detailed information on this snapshot procedure for backing up the network Firebird configuration is found in the AyaNova v3 Manual technical section - do review.

Do post back what Acronis and Norton say about their backup software.

  • Joyce

Hi Joyce,

Thanks. I think the route we are going to go is to insure that the image snapshot of the server via Acronis occurs AFTER the Firebird batch file has run. That way even if the INstallation of Firebird and AN3 become corrupt i the event we have to do a bare metal restore we still have a valid backup of the database that can be restored to a fresh installation of AN and Firebird. I will still be contacting the Acronis folks to find out if backing up a live database is supported as we use this app to back up many servers running SQL, Exchange ectfor our clients. Unfortunately THEIR response time is FAR less prompt that your company’s has always been, so it may be awhile before I hear back from them. I will post back once I know for sure asAcronis is an awesome piece of Backup software that drastically reduces recovery time - 20 minutes versus 4-8 HOURS for bare metal recovery. Can be run while Windows is up and running with very little effect on the server performance during the backup process. Highly recommend it to any and all IT Consultant companies as a solid backup solution.