Server & Client Optimization

Transcription

1 Table of Contents: Farmers WIFE / Farmers WIFE Advanced Make sure your Server specification is within the requirements... 2 Operating System... 2 Hardware... 2 Processor Server... 2 Memory... 2 Hard disk Server... 2 Screen resolution:... 2 Optimize your Server machine GB Switch... 2 Unable to alloc bytes GB switch in Windows 2008 or Vista... 3 Hardware... 4 Speed Test... 4 OS/Software... 5 Database... 5 Page file... 5 Remember to Always Keep your Hard Disk DE-FRAGMENTED!... 5 Reduce your Farmers WIFE database size... 5 Archiving old projects... 5 Archiving old tasks... 6 Delete deleted bookings... 6 Improve performance through Server Setup (Farmers WIFE Advanced)... 6 Force Shutdown... 6 Disable Chat... 7 Force Maximum Search Hits When Login... 7 Collapse Longform Trees On Login... 7 Improve performance through the User settings of the Client application (Farmers WIFE Advanced) 7 Disable the Long Form timeline view if you don t need it... 7 Modify your booking appearance from Round Edges to square edges... 7 Set maximum hits when searching to 100 or Reduce the available icons in the Hourline... 8 Reduce the amount of columns in Projects... 8 Disable Resolve Surrounding Conflicts When Bookings Change... 8 Disable Auto Refresh Timeline When Server State Changes Last Updated: July 2010 Page 1 of 9

2 Make sure your Server specification is within the requirements Operating System MS Windows XP Pro / MS Windows Server 2003 R2 x32 (recommended) and MS Windows Vista Apple Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and 10.5 (Leopard) Linux kernel minimum (only on Farmers WIFE Advanced) Tested with Ubuntu 6.10 and 7.04 and 7.10, Fedora Core 6, RedHat Enterprise 4 and CentOS 4.4. No XWindows system is needed but recommended for initial setup; tested with Gnome 2.16 and KDE 3.5. Only available for large or multi site facilities on a case-by-case basis; skilled in-house Linux IT Administrator(s) are prerequisite and an additional Linux Support agreement mandatory. Hardware A dedicated machine only running the Server application. Processor Server The Dual Core processor and the L2 Cache are strong variables in the WIFE performance equation. Dual Core Intel Xeon GHz/4MB L2 Cache 1333 FSB (recommended) Intel Core 2 Duo E GHz/4MB L2 Cache 1333 FSB (minimum) Memory Juggling memory is a thing Farmers WIFE relies on. 4GB RAM, therefore 3GB minimum available per WIFE Server instance; recommended at least 4GB RAM 667MHz FBD (e.g. 4x1GB dual rank DIMMs) per WIFE Server instance Hard disk Server Fast hard drives make the WIFE database backup faster, which frees up time to handle the actual work performance. 73GB SAS (15,000rpm) with 16MB disk cache Hard Drive; plus add. space according to individual needs for storing data to be used within the system. Screen resolution: 1024 x 768 minimum 1280 x 1024 recommended Since version 4.6 only MySQL v5.x is supported as default data extraction interface. Optimize your Server machine The following information is for experienced system administrators, so please ask your IT responsible to read the document as a checklist and try ALL of the settings. 3GB Switch The 3GB switch applies mostly to sites with Windows servers with large databases and with MySQL mirroring. But it could also help smaller sites. Always back up all your data before changing any settings! Last Updated: July 2010 Page 2 of 9

3 Unable to alloc bytes If Farmers WIFE Server crashes with a message unable to alloc bytes, it is likely that the VM size for your Farmers WIFE process gets close to 2 GB (monitor this with the Virtual Bytes performance monitor counter, or check manually with Task Manager View Select Columns). If this is the case, add the switch /3GB to your c:\boot.ini this allows Farmers WIFE to use up to 3 GB of user-mode memory. Example: [Boot Loader] Timeout=30 Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT [Operating Systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\winnt="microsoft Windows Server 2003" /fastdetect /3GB boot.ini is a hidden, write-protected operating system file be careful when editing it! Also, the /3GB setting may cause trouble on Windows 2000 Server Standard Edition. Please follow this step by step guidance: Go to My Computer Properties Advanced Startup and Recovery Settings System Start up Edit 3 GB switch in Windows 2008 or Vista To enable the 3GB switch on Windows Vista : 1. Right-click Command Prompt in the Accessories program group of the Start menu. Click Run as Administrator. 2. At the command prompt, enter "bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVa 3072" 3. Restart the computer. To disable the 3GB switch: 1. Right-click on Command Prompt in the Accessories program group of the Start menu. Click Run as Administrator. 2. At the command prompt, enter "bcdedit /deletevalue IncreaseUserVa" 3. Restart the computer. For more information on the 3GB switch, refer to the following Microsoft MSDN article: Last Updated: July 2010 Page 3 of 9

4 Farmers WIFE / Farmers WIFE Advanced And see the blog: Hardware First of all, make sure your system conforms to the recommended hardware specifications. For trouble-free operation of a large database, the server machine should have 3GB RAM available for the Farmers WIFE Server. Check this on a freshly rebooted machine without Farmers WIFE Server running: Task Manager Performance Physical Memory (K) Available. A large site may need to upgrade the hardware further beyond this. Basically, what supports a big database is: more RAM, faster disks, and faster CPU. You will have to monitor your system to determine which of these is the main bottle neck. Farmers WIFE server should be on a dedicated machine, i.e. no other software installed. MySQL should be on a separate machine. Speed Test Since version 4.7 it is possible to perform a Speed Test from your Farmers WIFE Server. Simply click on the button on the Server window. There is no need to disconnect users from the Server while performing the test. The log window will display the test results. The log window shows the results and once the test is done you will be prompted to restart the server. All users connected will need to disconnect at this point. Finally, send an to support@farmerswife.com including the log.txt from the server, (typically at C:\Program Files\Farmers WIFE Advanced Server\system). Last Updated: July 2010 Page 4 of 9

5 OS/Software Always keep an eye on your Windows Event Log and on the Task Manager. The cisvc service is a common hog on CPU and RAM. Set it to Disabled in Administrative Tools Services Startup Type, and also disable it on all your NTFS drives, as in this picture. Check in Task Manager after next reboot that cicsv is indeed not running anymore. Try disabling your antivirus software for a day and see if performance improves. Try setting Set Affinity to 1 on the Farmers WIFE Server process in Task Manager. Database MySQL 5 should run on a separate machine, see Hardware recommendations above. Page file System Properties Performance Options Virtual Memory: a typical setting for Farmers WIFE servers with large databases is Initial Size = 4000 MB Maximum Size = 9000 MB You can experiment with larger Maximum Sizes as long as you have enough disk space. Note that there is no harm setting a big Maximum Size; it will simply allocate some more disk space. As a guideline for Maximum Size, look at Peak Commit Charge in Task Manager. Please also ask your IT responsible to monitor the Windows Event Log. This often tells if something is not healthy on the hardware or OS level. Basically there should be no warnings and errors. If there are, they should be fixed immediately. Remember to Always Keep your Hard Disk DE-FRAGMENTED! Reduce your Farmers WIFE database size In order to do this, you must ARCHIVE OLD PROJECTS and FREEZE OLD TASKS. Archiving old projects Through the archive process, booking data gets stored outside the FW database, but the Project data remains in the database allowing you to still search for Archived Projects. This operation will decrease the size of the database and improve performance. You can restore Archived Projects easily at any time since the Archive and Restore From Archive procedures are done directly from the Client Application. You can only archive Closed and/or Invoiced projects, so all the 'Active' projects which are old, should be first set to 'Active: No' (please see the new47_archiving_manual.pdf to guide you). Last Updated: July 2010 Page 5 of 9

6 Archiving old tasks Tasks are Bookings NOT associated to a Project. By archiving Tasks, they will also be stored outside the database therefore reducing its size. This operation is done through the Server Application and requires that users are logged off (please see pages 10 and 11 of the new47_archiving_manual.pdf to guide you). Delete deleted bookings All your deleted Bookings and Binders are stored within Deleted Bookings And Binders in your Toolbox. It is strongly recommended that when this list becomes too big and contains old bookings that will never be restored, it should be emptied. To perform this operation go to Toolbox Deleted Bookings And Binders click on the arrow on top select Delete All You need the corresponding User Permission to be able to perform this operation. Improve performance through Server Setup (Farmers WIFE Advanced) Force Shutdown If your Farmers WIFE Server is installed on a PC, it is strongly recommended to configure the Force Shutdown option as displayed in the screenshot above, which will automatically shut down the program. By selecting the mode Restart, you can choose the time when the program shall be automatically restarted. By default it is set at 4 in the morning. But you can change this according to your needs. Last Updated: July 2010 Page 6 of 9

7 Disable Chat You can disable the chat functionality if is not used, since this will also improve the server performance (see the screenshot above). Force Maximum Search Hits When Login The option Force Maximum Search Hits When Login can be setup in the Server Setup General, together with the Hits Limit (see screenshot above). Every time a user logs in, the maximum hits will be set to the maximum established in the Server Setup. The user will be able to modify this maximum trhough Toolbox Settings Miscellaneous Maximum Hits When Searching (see more details about this further down). Collapse Longform Trees On Login It is recommended to have this option set to YES (see screenshot above). Every time a user logs in, any tree (Project tree, Object tree, Personnel tree, Classes Availability tree) that was showing some elements before logging out will be collapsed, thus improving performance, since the information will only be retrieved once it is needed, i.e. when you click on the tree to open it. Improve performance through the User settings of the Client application (Farmers WIFE Advanced) Some of these tips are temporary, fast solutions in case your hardware would eventually change if not meeting the minimum requirements. Please see these server requirements at the beginning of this document. And also note that for the Farmers WIFE Client application certain minimal specs apply and depending on how this machine is being used, these changes are a pre-requisite to improving application side performance. You might have to help your colleagues who are not as experienced users to apply these settings within their own user settings. Disable the Long Form timeline view if you don t need it A lot of data is constantly being checked and updated, so that Farmers WIFE will always reflect the up-to-date state of all the information. Users who don t need to see/use the Long Form overview of Projects etc. should disable it. Modify your booking appearance from Round Edges to square edges in the Hourline view, by disabling this function. In your Toolbox Settings Hourline Round Edges (see picture). Last Updated: July 2010 Page 7 of 9

8 Set maximum hits when searching to 100 or 250 in your Toolbox Settings Miscellaneous Maximum Hits When Searching. Farmers WIFE / Farmers WIFE Advanced Reduce the available icons in the Hourline to be viewed/accessed from a Booking in the Hourline to as many as needed, but to as little as possible; for example if the direct one click access is not necessary: Involved objects, Status icon, Timereports /clock icon, booking Notes etc. The information entered in the booking Note field, for example, will always appear through the mouse-over the booking, so you can hide the Notes icon. You can always access these same menus by clicking on the Booking and selecting these from the appearing dropdown menu. To change the view settings please go to the Toolbox Settings Hourline as shown in the image. Reduce the amount of columns in Projects to be displayed within the Toolbox in the Projects tab when using the search function. The fewer columns are displayed, the quicker results will be reflected. Change this though Toolbox Projects click on arrow on top Display Disable Resolve Surrounding Conflicts When Bookings Change If enabled Farmers WIFE will automatically change the red coloring of a conflicting booking, after it has been resolved, for example by changing one of the conflicting bookings to planning status. If disabled, when resolving a conflict, the red coloring of the conflicting booking will only change after manually confirming its status again. Find it in Toolbox Settings Server Setup Resolve Surrounding Conflicts When Bookings Change Last Updated: July 2010 Page 8 of 9

9 Disable Auto Refresh Timeline When Server State Changes If you disable this option, you can always update your view of the Timeline by using the Refresh button in the bottom left corner of the Client interface, whenever you need to. Last Updated: July 2010 Page 9 of 9