Are my file to large for PRO?

[franklin1232]

I have ten copies of filemaker PRO. One copy is hosting the files on a server. I have started modified my companies old filemaker and after creating some relationships, everything became slow. Not that is was fast to begin with, but now it's to slow. Some of my file are over 600MB. That seems like a big file for a desktop database solution. Would upgrading to Filemaker server help? If I spend the $700 to get a copy of server and it does nothing for us. My boss will not be a happy camper. Any input would be helpful.

[CobaltSky]

Hi,

In my experience, speed typically has more to do with the efficiency of the database design than it does to sheer file size per se. FMP will handle file individual sizes up to 2Gb, and solution sizes larger still.

One of the things to consider is the efficiency of relationships - simplicity and directness of relationship linking helps. Another important consideration is ensuring that appropriate fields are indexed, and that calculations are set appropriately as stored or unstored. In some instances, multiple calculation dependencies (which may slow down progress by updating all their multiple iterations every time anything is changed) can be usefully replaced with a 'calculate' script which updates and stores all the required values (in text and number fields) after an entire screen of data has been edited.

It is also worth ensuring that layouts are kept relatively small and purpose specific (or broken down into 'instalments') and on-screen dynamically-updating calculations and summary fields are kept to a minimum. On this and other forums, you'll also find discussions about the relative merits of different functions and formulae syntax viz-a-viz their efficiency - I won't go into that here.

Tuning considerations aside, the 'desktop' edition of FMP maxes out at tem simultaneous users. If you often have close to the max, then server and network efficiency will be an issue worth looking at - of equal or greater urgency that the FMP desktop vs server issue. FMP Server is one option, but it won't help you much (or perhaps not at all) if the box it is running on is slow or trying to manage multiple other functions simultaneously - or if there are network 'bottlenecks'. On the other hand, you may get an adequate speed boost by attending to the network configuration and doing some database tuning.

I would look at tuning first. Once the database is performing efficiently in single-user mode, do some test to see if, when running in multi-user, it is significantly more responsive on the host than the clients (and perhaps more responsive on some clients than others. If so, suspect network issues. If the slowdown is across the board, look at the host hardware and configuration (eg memory allocations, background processes, competing applications). And last of all, I'd say consider a move to FMP Server.

[Kurt Knippel]

Gotta disagree with CobaltSky here. With 10 users, running a large complex system, Filemaker Server is almost a necessity. Saving even 10 minutes a day for 10 users, which they will probably not even notice is well worth $700. Plus you will have the security and stability of the server edition of Filemaker which is one of the best database server available.

Tuning your solution is important, but tuning it now, on an improper configuration would be silly. You want to make sure that you setup if correct and proper for the environment, then work on tuning your databases for additional performance.

Filemaker Server also makes it easier to do development/tuning while the solution is in use by others, which will also save on productivity.

[franklin1232]

Thanks for the input. I don't think it's my network. My expertise is in Networking and administration not so much Database design. I have checked all available resources, and I have server monitors and network analyzers running all the time. No problems there. The server is a Dual pentium 1.2GZ with 1.5GB ram and Ultra SCSI 3 drives. I don't know if filemaker is capable of using dual processors but even so, the machine performs very few other functions which leaves plenty of resources. Network is all 100MB with Gigabit backbone. Total number of network users is 75.

[Kurt Knippel]

Filemaker Pro (client version) is not capable of making use of multiple processors, partially because it is a single threaded application. Filemaker Server is a multi-threaded application and is capable of making use of multiple processors provided the OS is also capable (i.e. Mac OS X, Win2K). However Filemaker Server is not all that processor intensive to begin with and you'll notice little difference. A FAST disk, or running it in a RAM disk will make it FLY!

Filemaker Server is a database server and thus should be run on its own machine with no other applications (especially servers) running and file sharing should be disabled.

You can download many good white papers, including one on server best practices, from the Filemaker, Inc website.

[JerrySalem]

Just to add my 2 cents.

You can downlownload the demo version of FM server.

It only works for 3 hours but this will give you an idea if it will give you any speed boost.

Jerry