hi all,

a customer complained about poor performance using the baan4c4-installation (oracle database).
the problem is, that the server is located in another country - so, sometimes it takes up to 10sec. to leave an input-field (because of "after-field-checks" or whatever)....
it is definitely a network-bandwith-problem. but they have no chance to change anything on their network in short term.

is there anything we can "tune" or change in the baan configuration to get a better overall-performance? increasing the memory for the database server?

thanks for your help,
Heiko

Heiko,

If you are sure that the network bandwidth/latency is the problem then I am not very confident that increasing memory/CPU etc would solve any problems except when you already have issues in those areas as well. I think you should start with a general check on system/database and application level. For OS you can use proprietary performance tools (like glance on HP-UX) or more generic ones (sar,iostat etc). On database level you could generate simple statistics with bstat/estat or the Oracle Statspack if you are using Oracle. Also in case of Oracle: it would be worthwhile checking your listener configuration as you may be able to optimize some of the TCP settings.

Baan has also a tool called Support Eye for a performance check.
solution 120511

Hieko,

1. You can use the top command in Unix which give you the process based output -


System: ABC Mon Jun 24 10:34:17 2002
Load averages: 1.09, 1.16, 1.29
492 processes: 465 sleeping, 27 running
Cpu states:
CPU LOAD USER NICE SYS IDLE BLOCK SWAIT INTR SSYS
0 1.34 58.4% 0.0% 27.7% 13.9% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
1 0.83 15.0% 0.0% 42.0% 43.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
--- ---- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----
avg 1.09 37.0% 0.0% 35.0% 28.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

Memory: 937156K (526636K) real, 4335636K (1574592K) virtual, 51812K free Page#
1/45

CPU TTY PID USERNAME PRI NI SIZE RES STATE TIME %WCPU %CPU COMMAND
1 ? 12955 oracle 154 20 36032K 3520K sleep 0:29 9.69 9.68 oracle
1 ? 12953 vxkum 154 20 283M 19540K sleep 0:18 6.91 6.90 oracle8
0 ? 12946 vxkum 154 20 31548K 25480K sleep 0:32 6.25 6.24 bshell
0 ? 20146 sdog 154 20 21308K 14332K sleep 0:03 1.68 1.68 bshell
1 tty0p0 35 root 152 20 0K 0K run 956:22 1.50 1.50 vxfsd
0 ? 0 root 127 20 0K 0K sleep 148:52 1.34 1.33 swapper
0 ? 9171 panrut 154 20 29500K 22372K sleep 0:10 1.33 1.33 bshell
1 ? 12113 ecs01 152 20 305M 10180K run 228:11 1.22 1.21 ecs.mcs
0 ? 9172 panrut 154 20 277M 14348K sleep 0:06 1.13 1.13 oracle8
$


2. You might consider changing the message mode - like using the page mode, so that the field validations are done after the user enters the data in the session/forms.

3. You can talk to the Network administrators wrt the bandwidth issues, memory issues with Unix administrators and Rollback/paging size etc settings with the Oracle-DBA's.

My thought is that you are experiencing extraordinary network performance issues. In my experience 90% of field to field delays are caused by network performance issues.

How many users are using the link? What is the bandwidth of the connection?

Implementation of network QOS in the infrastructure has provided some relief to sites running Baan that are experiencing contention between Internet, email, file transfer and Baan client applications. If the infrastructure has Cisco devices capable of this, you may be able to increase effective bandwidth without any capital outlay.

I have more to say, but have to leave for home.

Hope this helps,

Jim

Heiko,

Ironically it was IBM who solved my performance problems after quite a few consultants had burned themselves on it.

What I learned during a disastrous year of frequent user complaints, is to never make any assumptions. Unless you can prove it is the network, keep your options open.

Start with some simple pinging and tracing to produce some numbers that might indicate that you are on the right track.

With Oracle as a back-end, it is quite possible that you have serious problems there. However, before throwing more hardware at it, make sure that the box and the application are properly tuned.
The Baan sizing guide is helpful in determining if your current hardware configuration is up to the task.
It will also give ou recommended settings for your system that are best followed to the letter (no matter what the non-Baan people say. lol)

your suggestions helps me not only for this special case but for general understanding too!

thank you all!

heiko