Filemaker Server Speed - when Hosted

[daveblack]

Morning all, I have some queries here about how Filemaker server actually communicates with the FM clients, and what is the main limitations on speed.

We have been developing FM systems since FM v3 and are well versed in FM and its deployment. We have recently deployed a system that is used for around 100 clients based around the UK. The databases are hosted on a windows box with dual 10meg connections (fail safe).

Now when on a LAN the system loads fairly instantly, but takes around 20 seconds when hosted. Fair enough, the system is extremely responsive once loaded. However there are some meaty reports that cannot be run over the WAN setup. Which got me thinking into what is the weak link with this setup, what is making it slow.

The obvious answer is the 10meg link, rather than a 100meg or 1000meg LAN. But worse than that, its more likely to be the clients broadband, only pumping out 1/2meg with d/l's of 'upto' 8 meg.

So I turned to one customer who has ADSL2 - with uploads of 1meg d/l of 15meg (confirmed). However this made no difference to the load times or report times.

Another test I did was with a client in Cyprus, he uses satellite broadband, which gives him around 2meg connection - but his latency is around 1000ms. He cannot connect to the FM server AT ALL, it just wont have it.

So all this got me to believe its the latency thats the key part of improving FM hosting speeds. Which would indicate a large volume of 'chatting' between the FM server and client.

Anyone here have any experience of this kind of testing with ideas on speed?

Thanks

Dave

[IdealData]

Are you really on FMP 6?

There were significant performance improvements after FM Server 8 - in particular the way it delivered data to the client.

[daveblack]

Hi, no sorry that must have been put there from a few years back when I created this account.

This system is actually FMServer 8 with Clients FM 8.5

Dave

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Latency over a WAN is only one of many items that can affect performance. A few others include:

File architecture

Cache on both server and client workstations

Found set size

Free space available on workstation hard drives

You might want to read the Server White Paper on the FMI web site. Most of your earlier version experience just isn't applicable any more. Server behavior and performance in the .fp7 world is vastly different than it was in earlier versions.

Steven

[daveblack]

Thanks for that, i will change my profile not to mention FM6 as that has been mentioned in both replies and is simply not related. Ive been developing in fm8 and above since they became available.

I understand that multiple factors effect the speed, between us im sure we could list thousands.

The reason for my post was curiousity about the difference in speed between LAN and WAN.

The testing ive done seems to suggest that the actual bandwidth (10,100,1000 etc) is not the major factor - but latency is.

I will read that white paper to see if it enlightens me.

The reason for the post is as I am wondering about upgrading the remote hosting to 50meg, but from my testing dont believe that will make it any quicker.

Thanks

Dave

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Just to be clear: Latency is a factor for WAN performance. Buit it's only one factor, and it's not the principal factor.

Steven

[daveblack]

Thats the curious thing, my testing shows that latency IS the principle factor. As upgrading or using different levels of bandwidth makes little or in fact no difference to the speed.

The testing ive done regarding latency, shows that the lower latency increases speed in far greater steps than increasing bandwidth.

I may test a LAN setup with a bandwdith limit of say 1/2 meg. Latency will still be <1ms which I believe will then show uber speed even though running on low bandwidth.

Dave

[stanley]

All:

I would be curious to see any further comments on this topic, as we are struggling with a similar issue in one of our international roll-outs (all on FMP9/FMS9).

One location in particular is causing all sorts of problems, and when trying to return a large found set, the connection simply drops. Our (extremely high-end) IT guys say that they see tons of UDP traffic, so it appears that FMP is actually using UDP to transport data - even though the docs and specs all say that UDP is only used for name-binding (i.e., during the discovery phase of accessing the server.)

We have the exact same system set up in numerous locations around the world, with both LAN and WAN access, and it is only on this one WAN point that we really have problems (other than people accessing from lousy DSL connections 2000 miles away...)

Any comments welcome.

-Stanley