General pointers - slow performance

[wjmartin]

I have a longstanding .fp7 database which has been running for years on a FM10 Server. Access on desktop clients has been snappy and entirely satisfactory. There are 22,000 records, 380 fields per record (no containers) and the whole file is 300mb in size.

 

I am now testing access to it using iPads FM-Go-11. I have not altered the DB in any way, the layouts are simple and work well on the iPad. 

 

Here is my issue. When the iPads are within the same wifi network as the server the access is a little slow, but just about acceptable. But when the iPads are taken offsite and accessing through the cellular 3G network the access is painfully slow.

 

My question; Without being overly specific, are there certain general principals I should be following with my approach to iPad access? Are there some real no-no pitfalls that I may have fallen into? Any pointers would be welcome.

[wjmartin]

I got this excellent response from Lee PowerSlave over on thr FM-DEV Forum. I thought I would post it here (with his permission) to help others with similar questions:

 

"FmGo 11 does work ok over lan as you have stated, but for better wan performance you should consider FMGO 12. Fm 12 has been redesigned with wan performance in mind and it really does make a difference. Another point to consider is to create a stand-alone interface file that lives permanently on your device and have it use a file reference to your hosted data file (seperation model). This way only record data will be exchanged instead of record data, layout elements and all of the other 'bits'. The net result should be to exchange as little data as possible, and by having the layouts stored on your device, graphic data won't need to be sent via 3G. There are other things to consider such as only showing fields thay you REALLY need, and try to use merge fields in list views instead of normal fields. Each one of these techniques will add up to a significantly faster solution when being used across a 3G network. I have done the hard yards and been through what you are experiencing and when you start to rethink your design in a way that 'less is more', you will start to see good performance using FMGO across a 3g network.

Hope this helps, regards, Lee."

[bcooney]

Other ideas are to push processing to the server. See Fabrice's blog.