FM Server 8 Optimization

[Dali]

Hi,

We have FM Server 8 running on Win2003, Dual Xeon 3GHz, 4GB DDR2, 3x73 SCSI RAID 5. We have about 20 clients each sharing 2 files thus the server is currently serving 40 files over WAN on a dedicated 100Mbit/s pipe. Performance optimization in this scenario is critical. Average latency from a home network (cable/dsl) in NY to our server in TX is about 60ms. Most clients are in NY.

What would be the best optimal performance setting for the server? Enable or Disable SSL? Amount of cache? and the cache flush distribution? What should be the minimal latency and bandwidth? Certain customers seem to have performance issues even though they are on the high bandwidth network (3Mbits/sec)? Could it be due to latency?

When a layout contains related fields or portals it takes significantly longer to load/browse this record. Is there a way to optimize this? Are there any plugins that provide some optimization feautures on either client or server?

Any input would be appreciated

Thanks

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Take a look at the Server Tech Brief on the FileMaker Inc. website:

http://www.filemaker.com/support/upgrade/techbriefs.html

Be sure you're running the latest version, 8.0v4.

Set the cache to the maximum allowed and the flush interval to 1 minute. Also set the amount of RAM reserved for cache on the FIleMaker client workstations to at least 12 MB.

Steven

[Dali]

Thanks for your reply Steven,

I did some performance tests regarding related fields in a layout

Both tests were measured by displaying contacts records in a table view (10 columns and

57 rows/records per page, two related tables

Contacts and Groups, no calculations or global fields, straight forward text fields, relation fields all indexed)

The only difference between the two tests is in that in the first test the last column was displaying

the group name from a related group table while in the second test the group name was replaced by

contact's last name so the amount of data transfered should be similar.

Case 1 - with related field

In average for 57 records it took 8.5 seconds and 57,000 bytes per page (packets: 123 in / 123 out)

Case 2 - without related field

In average for 57 records it took 0.28 seconds and 8,200 bytes per page (packets: 7 in / 6 out)

note: in both tests same records/pages were used

Generally the two tests should yield same performance, what is going on here? Why is filemaker sending and receiving so much data from the server when related fields are involved?

If I login to the server machine over Remote Desktop and run filemaker client on it...the performance is much much better.

Perhaps using web publishing would be a better aproach since all the data would be compiled on the server and then just downloaded to the client when ready.

Would you recommend web publishing model? Would we achieve significant performance boost? What would the benefits/disadvantages be in such model?

Sorry for the long post,

Thanks again,

Dali

[Dali]

If you'd like to see the test file and more detailed test results I'd be happy to send them over to you.

There are about 14,000 contacts records and 45,000 group relations in the test file. The test was done over WAN.