Server Performance

[GibCo]

I must admit up front I have been programming in FM for 8 years but only recently have my customers forced me into the world of Servers! After reading most of the posts in the Server Performance Statistics thread, I am hopelessly confused.

I have a customer using FMP Server 5.5 and Citrix with over 300 users. They are networked over fiber optic lines over a county. There are approximately 8,000 records in the database (4 related FM files). I know there are issues with Citrix but I have no control over that. (When the system was first setup and the customer had trouble printing, the tech said, "You didn't tell me you wanted to print!" OAY!!)

The lady who is in charge of the FM database I developed for them must work through a MIS guy who will not allow her access to the FM Server without him standing over her. He is the gentleman who demanded that all users go through Citrix.

At this point there is a terrible slow down when 50+ folks access the database or when there are other folks using Citrix to access other applications on the central server. When everyone, mostly folks not using my database, are required to do periodic reports and thus access other applications on the central server, the entire system clogs and slows down. Also Citrix is set up to allow those accessing the other applications to have priority over those access my FM database. That adds to the problem.

We have tried to get the MIS person to allow us to install FMP on all the users's computers and access the database on the server without going through Citrix. The database manager has been able to do that on her computer and significantly reduced the connection time. My worry is that when we have 50 users again will that show down things the same way?

Our main problem is that the access to the records is limited to the particular user...example, when one user logson, the database searches for that records that match his name (and other criteria in some situations). Though we could set it up to open to all the records and then find the appropriate records, all those <access denied> things would showup in the records they have limited acces to.

My database manager was reading up and found this quote,

From Special Edition - Using FileMaker Pro 5 by Rich Coulombre and

Jonathan Price published by QUE (www.quepublishing.com).

page 529

"If connecting remotely to a large FileMaker Pro 5 file hosted by

FileMaker Server 5, script the connection to go to an empty found set

and a blank layout. This way only the record IDs will download to the

remote users, not all the metadata about the layouts. This can

significantly speed up connection time. Avoid complex graphics and

colors in the same scenario."

Does this mean that we should put in BLANK records and a BLANK layout and find those blank records when opening to the blank layout to speed up the connecting time??? Or do a find that finds no records? This seems very unprofessional but I am willing to try it if there is no other way to speed up the connecting time.

Also explain to me how much difference "Flushing the cache" would make in the performance. Could that speed things up?

We have also considered creating 5 duplicate databases and dividing the 8,000 records into those four different databases so the database accessed would be determined based on the user. So rather than 50 users accessing one database at the sametime, we'd have say, 10 users in one database, 15 in another , etc.

The MIS guy told my database manager that the FMP Server may just have a limit to the number of files it can have open. If we have 50 users accessing the existing 4 related FM files, that would be 200 files open (?is that how it works?). Would that mean if we split the database up we'd have fewer users per database but more files in use and run into the same problem???

I would apprciate any and all ideas about this mess. Thank you.

Bev at GibCo

[stanley]

Bev:

Lots of questions. Here are a few answers, working backwards:

quote: If we have 50 users accessing the existing 4 related FM files, that would be 200 files open

FM Server opens the files, then allows users to access them. There are still only 4 files open.

quote: we'd have say, 10 users in one database, 15 in another

FM Server can handle hundreds of users and databases; this is not a valid solution, nor does it address the real problem.

Flushing the cache can speed things up, but it also does not address the real problem.

What Coloumbre & Price were writing about was simply speeding up the time it takes to initially connect to the database, and is fairly good advice. However, not following that advice won't kill you. It is also not the real problem.

Sorry to have gone backwards with this. The real problem is:

quote: access other applications on the central server

You've got FM Server running on a machine that is also running other applications. This is what I'm reading into your first few paragraphs. This is THE 100% GUARANTEED way to slow FM Server to a snail's pace. It is also warned against in pretty much every manual you can lay your hands on.

There are very few rules that absolutely must be obeyed when using FM Server. The most important one is that FM Server must be the only application running on the FM Server machine. No exeptions. FM Server is simply a hard-drive access & service application, and it spends all of its time reading and writing from the drive(s) and delivering that data to the client machines. Any distractions from that task knock it to its knees.

It sounds like you've got a serious problem with this MIS guy, and I'm sorry to hear of it - but if he's going to act like he's in charge, maybe he ought to RTFM first.

The real solution here is to get FM Server on its own machine. It doesn't really need to be a hot rod, just a decent machine with a good drive subsystem and fast networking, and plenty of folks here will chip in their five cents worth on that topic. I wish I could give you some dope on how Citrix fits into all of this, but I'm just an FM Server guy.

HTH

-Stanley

[stanley]

Bev:

One more thing. There is a list of pitfalls to avoid with FM Server at the end of Chapter 17 in the Coulombre & Price book - it is pretty much everything that should be looked for first when debugging a major slowdown, and a good place to look for any further clues to the trouble.

-Stanley

[Vaughan]

Stanley's advice is good. If you want a second opinion, or want the from the horse's mouth then read the "Filemaker Server Best Practices" paper written by the good folks at Filemaker inc.

http://www.filemaker.com/downloads/pdf/fms_best_practices.pdf

All I can add is about flushing the cache: the cache speeds up access between FMS and the hard disk, and by default is flushed (written to the disk) whenever FMS is idle, or every 15 minutes (or some time specified in the preferences). Flushing the cache does not speed anything up, in fact the machine will slow down a bit while it does the writing because it's busy doing something relatively slow -- writing to the disk. Because the cache uses volatile RAM it's possible that a power outage could occur between the time data is written to the cache and the time the cache is flushed to the disk.

Hence the compromise: if the cache is flushed every time a change is made there is no point in having the cache but the data integtiry is ensured, but the less often it is flushed the faster the machine respose will be, but there is more chance that data could be lost if there is a power failure. For this reason FM gives you a choice of specifying the flush time. On a slow network, making the cache flush more frequently would probably slow things down considerably since all that data needs to travel through the very slow wires, even if the cache doesn't need flushing. However, if data integrity is primary concern it might be desirable.

[GibCo]

Thank you for your input about our problem(s).

Here is some information I have been able to get from my database manager. She says that the FMS is on a dedicated server. No other applications are on it. It a top of the line for use as a server Dell that was purchased last year. She didn't know the exact model and memory but was pretty sure it was more than enough.

Our problem at this time is that all users are going through Citrix on another server to access the server holding FMS and our databases. We know this is the problem. Our MIS guy says that if they do not use Citrix to "control for data flow" it will over tax the entire system and everything in all the applications on all the servers connected to the server on which Citrix resides will be bogged down. I know nothng about this so we are at his mercy on this one.

All we know is that if that when my server manager uses FM and goes directly through FM to the databases without passing through the Citrix server there is no slowdown in the connection time.

Using her remote administration she was able to give me the following server performance statistics. I don't know enough to know if it is good or bad.

Disk: 284

Guest: 42

Network: 1012 Km/sec

Transactions:452

These are all PEAK.

She also told me her Cache Hit %: 100

And that value was the same for Current, Average and Peak.

We were also checking out the various server trouble shooting items and came across one that said the "File sharing on the system where the FM server resides should be disabled, that FileMker Pro did not need for file sharing to be on and it could cause problems."

When we went it to check this on the server, we discovered that "File and Printer Sharing" is enabled at this time. We are reluctant to disable it as there were terrible problems when we originally started up because the users were unable to use their local printers to print. Supposedly there was something about a conflict with Citrix and FM. The Citrix folks said it was a FM problem and the FM folks said it was a Citrix problem. In the final stand, FM admitted it was their problem but would not guarantee that it would be fixed next week, next month, next year, or ever! (typical) Anyway, the only way for the users to print, is to use the server printers.

If we disable "File and printer sharing" won't that make it impossible for them

to print at all??

Thank for all your ideas. We are still researching all the information you have given me.

Bev at GibCo

[Kurt Knippel]

The fact that you cannot turn off file sharing without also turning off printer sharing indicates that you are running on a non-server version of Windows. In this case you should NOT be running your printers off that same box. Right now it is a Filemaker Server, File Server and Print Server. It should ONLY be a Filemaker Server. This means disabling File and Printer sharing and moving the printers off to another Windows Server machine, or even the Citrix machine.

However all things considered, I do believe that your problems stem more from a Citrix configuration than anything else, as your own tests with bypassing Citrix will attest to.

Solution? I cannot think of any? Maybe another Citrix user can shed some light on the situation?

[Anatoli]

Probably the Citrix machine is overloaded.

FMS flies with 100 TCP/IP and Terminal services users and with 124 databases.