Slow Pervasive Performance

[leftee]

Let me start by admitting that i have very very little experience with Pervasive. I have been doing some other I.T. work for a company and they have asked me to help troubleshoot a problem with an ERP program they are using to run their manufacturing business. They are aware of my lack of pervasive experience. They have always managed their I.T. stuff in house, but they admit this problem is beyond the scope of knowledge of anybody in the company. The software company wants to do support by email and no progress is being made. This ERP program is used by alot of businesses not some fly by night operation. I'll try to supply as much info as i know right now.


Issue / problem:

ERP Client app is extremely slow running processes or opening data from the database . It can take 2 or 3 minutes or even longer for it to open some records. All clients run at least Winxp Pro and a few are on Win 7 .

Strange thing is they were advised by the company that sold them the ERP program they needed to upgrade to a new server. They bought a new Dell Server running Windows Server 2008 R2. and the only thing it is running is Pervasive. It is causing pervasive to run slower now than it did on the the previous Windows 2003 server that was running Pervasive , Active Directory , Exchange Server, as well as doing file sharing.

The network is currently just a 100 mb. They are in the process of going to gigabit. New switches have been ordered. All cabling on the network has been tested and certified. most cabling is cat5e and the rest is some newer cat6.


Running Pervasive 10 on the 2008 server

clients workstation ERP app use Pervasive Client 10 to connect to the pervasive database.

Any suggestions of things we can start troubleshooting.

I'll supply as much info as i can if more is needed.

Thanks,

 

[mirtheil]

Try some of the PSQL tools like Function Executor or Pervasive COntrol Center (PCC). OPen files / tables, read records / execute SELECT queries. Do they still have the slow performance?
Run Pervasive System Analyzer, it has tests for the network, Btrieve, and SQL. Does it show slow performance in any of the tests?
Is there anything in the PVSW.LOG on the client or server?
What's the exact version of PSQL v10 being used?



Mirtheil
Certified Pervasive Developer
Certified Pervasive Technician

http://www.mirtheil.com

 

[leftee]

Can i run system analyzer with users logged on ?

I'll check log files

I'll find out what version clients are running.

Thanks for the help .

 

[mirtheil]

Yes, PSA can be run with users logged in.

How many users do you have?
What are the specs on the server (RAM, CPU, Hard Drive, etc)?
What are the settings for PSQL (Cache, System Cache, Max Microkernel Memory Usage)?


Mirtheil
Certified Pervasive Developer
Certified Pervasive Technician

http://www.mirtheil.com

 

[leftee]

#clients
30 users ... most of the time no more than 20 on at a time

Server Version : 10.30.017000
Client Version : 10.30.017000
SP2 Version : 5.0.69


Server Specs:

Dell PowerEdge T310

CPU Xeon X3450 2.67ghz
8 gig ram
40 gig HD broke up into C and D partitions. Raid controller


Microkernel:
use cache engine is not checked
Cache allocation 64
Max Microkernel 60

Where do i find cache and system cache? I can't locate these two.

 

[mirtheil]

The settings would be at the server level not the client level. You can connect to the server using the PCC and see the settings. The Cache Allocation and Max Microkernel Usage settings are under Performance Tuning and the System Cache setting is under Memory Usage.

Mirtheil
Certified Pervasive Developer
Certified Pervasive Technician

http://www.mirtheil.com

 

[leftee]

In my research i found some info saying that with thes multicore processors you shoul change the power options in the Windows 2008 Server control panel to High performance instead of running at the default Balanced setting. It has helped. I had several people stop me and ask what i had done to speed up the system. I had not told anybody that i had made any changes so these were all unbiased opinions. So if anybody else is having a similar problem try that setting and see what kind of mileage you get out of it.

Still got some work to do but have made a little progress

 

[leftee]

I did not find any errors in any of the log files.

 

[leftee]

Here is what i find for cache settings . This is under the properties of the Microkernel. Is this the Cache info you were asking for ?

I have posted screenshots at this link

http://realshare.net/pcc/pcc.html

 

[mirtheil]

As far as the cache settings, it is not what I'm looking for. You need to be in the "Engine" settings, not the "Router" settings.

There is also the multi-core issue where apps run slower. This was in a blog posting a while back:

Raise your hand if you’ve bought a server in the last year. If you have, it’s got a multi-core processor. Minimum would be a dual core, more likely a quad, and lots of newer boxes are coming with 8-cores. Now, raise your hand if you’ve designed your application with a lot of parallel processes to run on those multiple cores. Most companies have upgraded hardware, most haven’t written their applications to take advantage of it. Many applications are going to run more slowly as a result. (Managing multiple cores, cache and synchronizing everything creates a LOT of overhead.) For more on why this happens, check out the whitepaper from CITO Research - The Multi-core Dilemma.

Posted at

http://cs.pervasive.com/blogs/perva...-release-candidate-but-wait-there-s-more.aspx

If you can upgrade to v11, you might see more improvements.

Mirtheil
Certified Pervasive Developer
Certified Pervasive Technician

http://www.mirtheil.com

 

[leftee]

here is the cache info you asked for

Performance tuning:
Cache allocation 2000
Max Microkernel Memory usage 40


Memory Usage:
System Cache is not checked
Allocate Resources on Startup is checked

 

[leftee]

Alright, after doing some considerable searching and reading i think i am beginning to understand a little better how the cache settings work in pervasive. If i understand correctly pervasive uses 2 levels of caching. L1 ( cache allocation) and L2 ( Max Microkernel memory).

and L1 is usually set around 20% of Installed Memory. In my case with 8 gigs of ram my L1 cache should be around 1600 or 1.6 gig.

Is my setting of 2000 alright ?

This server is mainly running Pervasive Server. It does not run Active directory or Exchange, that is all being handled by our Windows 2003 Server that is the domain controller.

Do you think i could bump up my Max Microkernel memory to 60% or 70% without having any problems.

If this was to cause issues, would it be anything that can damage the database ?

Thanks so much for all the previous help you have offered

 

[mirtheil]

Before you start changing settings, what does the application vendor recommend for PSQL settings? They know their application the best and can usually recommend some settings.
Also, I had asked about some of the PSQL tools previously. Did you run them? Did they show performance problems?

Mirtheil
Certified Pervasive Developer
Certified Pervasive Technician

http://www.mirtheil.com