FMPro 5.5 / Win2k server terminal services

[Christopher Feyrer]

I'm looking to max out performance of Windows 2000 Server, Filemaker Pro 5.5 and 50+ terminal services users at any given time. If anyone has this configuration running speedily, with 23+ databases open at a time, suggestions are welcome as to configuration choices. I have already consulted he best practices paper, and we are encountering the following issues.

Note: FM Pro server 5.5 and term services are on different servers.

1. Terminal Services displays a blank blue screen after user remote login. Probably term services, but may be due to lots of pre-existing instances of Filemaker Client up and running.

2. 2 CPU machine always maxxed. This is a dual Xenon server. Filmaker is the primary app. Win2k is supposed to handle up to 160 knowledge workers; we are up to 50 using this filemaker solution and it is maxxed? 4 gig RAM. SCSI drives.

3. Databases sometimes open slowly. Could be due to summary fields, but want to make sure it's not anything to do with hardware/software issues...

Is Linux/Mac OS X a better solution for this large scale w/ a Filemaker server? I've checked the performance thread but no one else seems to have this many users. Please let me know your thoughts.

Chris

[Anatoli]

124 databases, 70 users on that (mentioned) very fast W2000 *CLIENT* powered FM server. CPU arround 8-40%.

What is maxxed? FM server or TS?

[Christopher Feyrer]

CPU is always at 100% on both machines! The client machines are win95/win98 dumb terminals for the most part running TS. Let me know where to look and I can provide you more specifics.

Thanks Anatoli.

Chris

[Anatoli]

It will be probably something stupid in Windows settings :

I'll suggest starting both servers, with single user in TS. What is the CPU on that one?

Never use on staring layout any calc or summary field.

[Christopher Feyrer]

The starting layout is just a script that opens all databases that need to be opened and brings the user to a menu.

It's a 4 CPU Win2k server with SCSI drives! Still maxxed.

There are lots of reports that are run over term services as this needs to be done due to the way the business operates. I've only just gotten access to the codebase.

Reports especially (over term sevices) slow machines down here a lot. Again, only having just gotten access to the code, I can't tell you yet how many calculated fields are in the reports. But it would make sense that there are a lot.

Can you suggest performance tweaks (assuming I can't go through 30-50 databases of code and rewrite every report, at least at first)?

[Christopher Feyrer]

Correction -- as I mentioned in my earlier post it is a dual Xenon processor Win2k server.

[Anatoli]

You need single idle user connected to single TS session and then check the CPU's.

If there are calculated summary fields running across many records -- that is usually bad design.

Better is to have static values in database. Database is not spreadsheet and doesn't like to calculate much.

[Christopher Feyrer]

I am being asked constantly not to do this, as it doesn't emulate the environment we have to run in, with 40 users logged in at a time. How does logging in one user provide useful information when the reports will need to be run with 40 users logged in?

Chris

[Christopher Feyrer]

I will probably have to come in on the weekend or late at night to do these tests, as the system is almost in constant use all day 5 days a week.

[Anatoli]

That test will give us the starting point -- is FM system OK?

But even with few users and with wrong design CPU at TS can be 100%.

[neomodo]

We run 95 hefty databases via terminal services to about 40 individuals - Some of these have sick calculations going on too... My servers barely break a sweat.... ever...

On the client side we found that XP FM Pro Clients , for some-as-of-yet-undiscovered-reason is much faster than Win 2k in those cases - We found that FMPro 6 also works better. Unfortunately XP only handles 1 remote client - The difference is that we spread out our databases accross 2 servers - 2x 2.8 ghz Xeon CPU's - 2 gb of very fast DDR Memory, very fast scsi drives - and a gigabit connection to the back end from the terminal server machines -

I haven't heard of any better results than that... The slow performance is a combination of Memory, I/O / disk and network bottlenecks - open them up as much as you can - it's worth it ... I have not needed to do anything major in terms of maintenance for over a year now... We tried OS X and we tried Linux - Windows was best all around and also recommended by the development folks we met with at FM - in fact, at the time OSX, in my opinion was a liability in terms of Fleamaker -

[Christopher Feyrer]

Thanks for the response, neomodo. At our business we are using old Win95 and Win98 boxes as the client machines for term services, figuring that would save us from upgrading the machines. We also use WYSE winterminals (flash modules that are just for using term services.)

It doesn't make sense to me that Win2k or XP clients would make any difference, because they are basically using the server's system resources for everything but emulation.

Please explain further! Thanks!

Chris

[Anatoli]

RE: I haven't heard of any better results than that...

... which are ....:

[Christopher Feyrer]

Just want to mention appsense software has helped improve the capacity of our FM Pro servers. www.appsense.com

[Christopher Feyrer]

Every user has 45 databases open. Tell me if this is a factor.