Using version 4.5 on a Peer To Peer network

[beaver2]

I currently have a Pardox 4.5 Dos application running on a Windows98 and Windows 95 system.
This is a fairly big application (71 databases, 20,000 lines of scripts.)
I have 5 workstations. This is a peer to peer network so one of the workstations (master)c: drive contains all the files and Paradox. The other workstations(slaves)are linked to the master workstation c:drive by 3 Com 10/100 Network cards and hub.
The only files residing on the slaves are the common files used when doing queries.
The master is quite fast. The slaves are quite slow in comparison.
Some of the slaves are fast machines.(1.7 GHZ, and 256 MB memory)
My question is; can I somehow speed up the slaves?

 

[Langley]

You might try putting runtime locally on all the slave machines and make sure they have mapped drives to the master PC's folders where the data is located.

Mac

"Do not delve too deeply in the arts of your enemy and so become ensnared by them"

langley_mckelvy@cd4.co.harris.tx.us

 

[beaver2]

Reply to Langley;
If I put Runtime on the slaves where do I put the application ?
My application is not *.sc files but libraries.

 

[Langley]

Just make a batch file that includes your command line arguments (extk command) and the path/startup script, which should be on the master. The start-up script would reference the libraries by path (also on the master).

Mac

"Do not delve too deeply in the arts of your enemy and so become ensnared by them"

langley_mckelvy@cd4.co.harris.tx.us

 

[scoots987]

How big are your databases? How(big?) much space is the file server? What does the application do? Does you application open all or most of the tables at startup?

Scott

 

[beaver2]

Answer to Scoot987(Scott);
I have 290 Databases (A lot are reports and work files) I have 5 big ones between 3 mb and 5 mb(40,000 records). Most files are under 500k.
All files reside on the master drive. The only ones on the workstations are the private work files (about a dozen).
The application is a inventory, Accounts Payable and Accout Receivable system. They produce about 200 invoices a day.
The system only opens files as they are needed. It does a lot of SQL so it creates a lot of temporary files. The files are only opened to do a update then immediatly closed. The files are shared by all the work stations.

 

[scoots987]

Are you the developer? The reason I ask is that you may have a design issue. If your application opens up all the tables during a data entry session for instance, then Paradox sends copies of all the databases to the "slaves". This is poor design.

Here is what I have done for a 18 user Pdox45 DOS application recently. I upgraded to a Novell 6 server with drive arrays. I added 4 XP machines and all other machines are win98. With the current Novell client, everything is speedy as hell. I set this up for a phone reservation system that had 18 people pounding the databases all day long. The XP machines are totally FAST. I wrote a test app to query and record lock randomly and specific records. I start all the win98 testing the queries and locking. Then I started the XP machines. The XP machines finished the testing LONG before any of the win98 machines. I had two win98 machines that were identical with XP machines and they too were slower.

So two things come to mind:
1) design of your database, maybe needs to be rethunk.
2) upgrading to Novell with XP boxes is awesome.

Note: I have noticed some lock errors with the XP boxes, but I think it is because XP is faster then Paradox's locking schemes on this server. Never even regretted the switch.

Scoots987

 

[footpad]

Scoots87,

You may want to review your Novell settings, for some of the defaults are smaller than ideal for the Paradox file format. One in particular can cause three packets to be sent when only one is needed. If memory serves, it's Receive Buffer Packet Size and it defaults to 1.5KB. Since many Paradox table buffers default to 4KB, you can see why this would triple the traffic. Review the cache settings and set them to a minimum matching the size of your table buffers, e.g. 4KB (this depends on your table structures). That may help improve things.

Hope this helps...

-- Lance