Question

slow performance with Visual Foxpro v8 on a Windows 2003 server

Asked by: johnbowden

We are running a program called Sage Rainbow (which is a fundraising software) and is running on a Windows 2003 SBS server. If there is only one person accessing the software, it's quite quick but as soon as more users get on it (on average about 10) it really does start to slow down.
Of course, we did a test and installed the database on a local workstations and it flys.
Is there anything that I can do to optimize the speed of this software over the network?

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Asked On
2009-09-28 at 09:44:36ID24767436
Tags

foxpro windows 2003 sbs

Topics

FoxPro Database

,

Windows 2003 Server

,

SBS Small Business Server

Participating Experts
3
Points
250
Comments
8

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Answers

 

by: CaptainCyrilPosted on 2009-09-28 at 10:58:03ID: 25441539

Try to disable anti-virus check on dbf files.

Does the application lock the whole file or specific records on saving?

 

by: johnbowdenPosted on 2009-09-28 at 11:00:16ID: 25441572

Antivirus is disabled on the entire Rainbow directory on the server but is not on the workstations.
I will find out about the application lock and get back to you

 

by: Olaf_DoschkePosted on 2009-09-28 at 11:28:32ID: 25441846

I doubt you can do anything. The fast access, almost like working with a local installation, when only one user is active, could be caused by opportunistic locking (this is an OS level optimisation in the file system and works by caching). The only thing you can try is turn that off: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/296264/en-us

The effect this would have is, that the first user rather has the same slow experience, but on the other side it could help make it sufficiently fast for all.

Bye, Olaf.

 

by: johnbowdenPosted on 2009-09-28 at 11:36:34ID: 25441935

do I turn the opportunistic locking off on just the workstations?

 

by: _BirkoffPosted on 2009-09-28 at 11:37:34ID: 25441949

we are running a foxpro application for our ERP system.
we've had the same issues running the application over the network, but in the end we had to setup a Terminal Server with the application installed locally on the C: or D: drive just to get some proper performance.

foxpro application over a network interface are generally problematic in my experience

this isn't really a solution, just some feedback

 

by: Olaf_DoschkePosted on 2009-09-28 at 12:21:21ID: 25442393

If you want to do the least, just turn opportunistic locking off on the server. If the server doesn't support it, the clients may have turned it on, they won't get an oplock.

Bye, Olaf.

 

by: Olaf_DoschkePosted on 2009-09-28 at 12:31:45ID: 25442473

_Birkoff:

myths about foxpro data:
-clients cause lots of filehandles and locks: true
but
-clients pull whole files (DBF, CDX, FPT) over the LAN: wrong

It's not foxpro itself, but bad programming, bad data access design, unoptimized tables (indexing), that cause a foxpro app to be slow over the LAN.

If it works sufficient for you to turn that app into a Terminal Server app, that's fine. That may even be a solution to John Bowden.

The other thing that helps of course is optimize the LAN: Gigabit, analyze, if there are any bottlenecks in the LAN that make the fox app slow.

By the way, sharing the EXE on the LAN is also a bad idea, if not doing that in the way Terminal server shares an installation, but the EXE is simply file shared. Because then it's not only data access but also program execution taking bandwidth from the LAN. Install the app local, only install data central.

Bye, Olaf.

 

by: CaptainCyrilPosted on 2009-09-28 at 23:30:55ID: 25446468

I have a FPW26 used by 55 users accessing 2 GB database. There is no slowness in any form. It's an MIS application. The database is properly indexed and hosted on 10/100 Mbps network.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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