Upgrade to 5.5 experiences?

[AndriesV]

Currently we're running 1 Server v3 with 25 clients v4.1. At this moment we're at the decision point of upgrading to FM5.5

Recently the old FM-server3 setup was moved from an old NT4 server to a 4cpu W2000 server. Performance however did not improve. (An earlier test of the old setup on NT4 with only a faster CPU made a lot of difference)

I know performance (or rather the lack of it) can be caused by many things. I'm wondering whether others would share some of their experiences with upgrading, especially with regard to performance changes. Some hints on what to avoid or take a good look at would also be appreciated very much.

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Take a look at the FileMaker Server Best Practices White paper in the downloads section of the FileMaker, Inc. web site.

Moving the files themselves from FileMaker Pro 4.1 to FileMaker Pro 5.5 may require reqeiting some routines, especially those employinf IF[] statements. Also, numerous changes in file structure and file specs may require other tinkering. Other than that, files free from corruption usually migrate very successfully.

FileMaker Server 5.5 is more complex and it requires closer adherence to certain practices than did the Server 3 series. It runs on Windows 2000 Server, on Windows NT 4 Server (SP 5 or 6A), on Mac OS X, on Red Hat Linux, and on Mac OS 9--although I probably wouldn't.

Use a dedicated CPU, and do not have any type file sharing enabled. While a fast server is better than a slow one, the bulk of performance gains come from the workstation CPU's. They should be higher clock speed machines, and they need at least 500 MB of free drive space.

HTH

Old Advance Man

[Steven H. Blackwell]

I should also add that only rarely does FileMaker Server 5.5 benefit directly from dual processors, and only on the Windows side.

Old Advance Man

[Arin]

I've been running Server 5.5 for about 6 months now on OS X, and it's been great.

The only problem was with the buggy backup scheduler (forgets to backup), but a small cron job found on another post fixed that.

It's both stable and fast.

I'm runnign it on an 867Mhz G4 running OS X v10.1.2 with 640Megs of Ram.

I host about 25 databases and one of the client machines runs FMP unlimited to the web.

-Arin

[Anatoli]

RE: Recently the old FM-server3 setup was moved from an old NT4 server to a 4cpu W2000 server. Performance however did not improve. (An earlier test of the old setup on NT4 with only a faster CPU made a lot of difference)

If the v.3 is not written for multiple processors, that is logical. Only faster CPU, memory, HD and network will positively affect the performance.

FM server 5 is 2-5 times faster in our installations, than v. 3. And maybe it will be better on multiple processors, but I am not convinced about that.

[AndriesV]

Thank you for all the feedback. One question still, what is it that I look out for with regard to IF[] statements.

[Steven H. Blackwell]

IF statements evaluate differently (and correctly) on FMP 5.5, whereas they did not in earlier versions. Droid had a thread on that issue here some time back.

Generally you should include an explict test for null values.

FM Server 5 and 5.5 on Mac OS are not written for dual processor. On Windows 2000 Server, that is different. Minor gains on MAc OS X from general performance of DP might be possible. But since FM Server is not the core factor determining overall speed (but it is a very important one) DP is basically a waste of money.

Old Advance Man

[AndriesV]

Thanks, I'll try to lookup Droids post(s)

With regard to the performance topic, would you know where to find some information on how FM e.g. handles searches in a client server setup. Does the server do most of the processing or does it only send all relevant fields, or indexes where available, to the client for processing or

... I've notices that when a client starts a time-consuming search the cpu usage on the server never goes over 25%, still all users suffer from the impact on overall performance. This can't be totally blamed on bandwidth as other network activity in the same segment doesn't seem to be affected. On the other hand if the network is busy, e.g. because too many laptops do a backup at the same time, this has an impact on FM even for simple data-lookup's...

Are there some general explanations available somewhere?

[Steven H. Blackwell]

See the FileMAker Server Best practices White paper.

The index is housed on the server CPU by FIleMAker Server but the actualt search is done on the local CPU. Searches on indexed fields are usually fast.

HTH

Old Advance Man