Re: Slow network connection?
- From: "Tom S." <tjs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 23:01:17 -0500
I've got the profiler and performance monitoring on the agenda for this weekend. Actually ProLaw is a great program and Thompson/West does have great support (of course, the client pays a premium price) but this is year 8 for us with the software and I have called Tech support a 2:00am (server crash on a previous server) and got a smart guy who was not grumpy (I sure was) and fixed the problem in about 15 minutes.
I will say after telling the support guy about the bill going from 70 seconds to 5 minutes in such a short period of time, cooled his rebuild the server idea.
Tom
"Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]" <gwdibble@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:B3DF11D0-32A9-43EA-8690-DBA661C4F562@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Good point, Cris. I've been looking at ProLaw (for a different reason) - their Vista desktop recommendation is 2.5 GB RAM. I have a blank check for hardware, and this machine only has 2 GB.
Tom, that performance monitoring thing sounds like the best way to go. Given what you said about creating the bill to screen, I'm not thinking a printing or network issue. It seems to me that ProLaw support should be actively involved in resolving this. It's my impression that ProLaw support is at the high end of the cost spectrum for law office apps, and they should cheerfully help solve this.
"Cris Hanna [SBS-MVP]" <crisnospamhanna@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:e%23hM%23uPlIHA.4076@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
how powerful are the workstations that you're running this from?
During the day I manage a Time and Attendance application for company with 300 locations and 30,000 hourly employees.
Its Web (Java) based with an Oracle back end on Unix it 24 GB of RAM, but a fair amount of processing still seems to be done on the workstation, so our payroll folks at some remote locations with 512mb of RAM are sitting there chugging away forever. I can run the same report with 1.5 GB of RAM and it runs in no time.
Just a thought
--
Cris Hanna [SBS-MVP]
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Independent Experts (MVPs do not work for MS)
Real World Answers
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Please do not contact me directly regarding issues
"Tom S." <tjs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:7EOIj.21099$xq2.12175@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thanks Dave,
I ran the test last night with no one on the server but me and did send the
report to the screen it still took 5 minutes. I actually have a separate
server serving as a print server and storage for PDF scans. I tried sending
it to different printers and still no improvement.
I certainly do not want to do a server reinstall, however, the client is not
using exchange (I know, I know) and the only other application on the server
is a small time and attendance program and Backup Exec. But like you, I am
wary because after the reinstall is done the problem may still exist, but my
bill will be much larger. Here is the suggestion I got from a member of the
ProLaw users group. I am not versed in running a profiler session and
performance monitor, so I need to familiarize myself with that.
I would start out with running a profiler session and performance monitor
when the bills are running to see if the problem is associated with disk
I/O. Assuming you have a few statements that holding you up, you'd need to
build some indexes to help speed those areas up.
"Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]" <gwdibble@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:25F2C8DE-073E-4FC0-B39D-1C1DF252F5A8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> My personal opinion only: I would never consider a move so drastic as
> reinstalling an OS or splitting applications onto a second server, in the
> absence of a conclusive diagnosis of the problem's cause. You could
> potentially spend significant time or thousands of dollars, only to end up
> in the exact same place.
>
> ProLaw has high system requirements, but you're running it on a powerful
> server. My gut instinct is that this is a software or configuration
> issue, and I'd be surprised if network or other hardware issues were the
> cause. You could easily look in task manager to see what the free
> resources are, comparing a time when the normal full number of users are
> logged in with a time when there's only one user.
>
> With our own time and billing system, I'll often see 20 users logged in.
> However, with the possible exception of the bookkeeper, no one is really
> doing much that would use system resources. So if you have 40 people
> logged in, they're probably creating the occasional time entry, or looking
> at a document, but not doing anything to use a large amount of resources.
>
> Can you create the bill in a window rather than sending it to the printer?
> If so, you're sure this is an issue with printing, rather than with bill
> creation, right?
>
> How about asking your West rep for the name of a similar sized firm using
> the same app, and checking with them to see if they can give you any
> insight? They should at least be able to tell you their configuration and
> what their results are when trying the same things you're having issues
> with.
>
> If you've read this far, you deserve a useful suggestion, so here it is.
> How much free space do you have on your C drive? What happens if you move
> the print spooler directory to a drive with more free space? (Printers
> and faxes -> File -> Server Properties -> Advanced. Just change the spool
> folder setting to point to a different directory that you create for this
> purpose. Note the existing setting for undo permissions, watch
> permissions on the target folder, and note that you'll lose any pending
> print jobs when you change the setting. Most importantly, test
> immediately after changing). I'm thinking this is either a spooler setting
> or something to do with the printer driver, so you might also want to see
> if you get the same results with a different printer - I'd try both a
> different network printer, and a locally attached one).
>
> "Tom S." <tjs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:RELIj.423$ch4.355@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>>
>> I am at wits end. We upgraded to the current version of our main
>> application software (it is called ProLaw, and is document management
>> software for law firms). It runs on SQL2005 in SQL2000 compatibility
>> mode. Our server is a Dell 2900, 2 dual core processors, 4gb of ram and
>> disk array with 680gb. We are running SBS 2003 r2 Premium with 45 users.
>> After the upgrade the application was a bit slower, but acceptable. Then
>> we started printing our billing. A one page sample bill that took less
>> than a minute to print on the old version takes 5 minutes on the new one.
>> Needless to say that was not good. However, when
>> we ran the bill logged in to the application on our server console it
>> took 30 seconds. This suggested a slow or problem network connection so
>> we set up a dedicated 1gb connection to our test workstation. We also
>> have a support contract with the vendor and they have been looking at the
>> problem for a week and have been trying all kinds of things within SQL
>> and their application.
>>
>>
>>
>> They had us setup a small dual core Pentium machine, installed SQL
>> (workgroup edition) and Prolaw and had a workstation connect to the
>> shared ProLaw folder, The bill ran in about a minute. The vendor's tech
>> guy says our server is the problem. So I started to swap out NIC's. On
>> the first NIC change the sample bill took 70 seconds, I ran it again,
>> same time. Success!!!
>>
>> Then I went to run a bill set of 6 bills and I waited and waited. It took
>> 10 minutes for two of the six to print, so I exited that routine. And
>> here is the stupid part. I went back and ran that single bill again, and
>> it took almost five minutes, when only 15 minutes before it took 70
>> seconds! I swapped out the internal NIC and it did not increase the
>> speed. I have tried 5 different cards from three different vendors with
>> no improvement. I have to discuss this with tech support at ProLaw today.
>> I expect them to again to point to the server. However, they did comment
>> yesterday that we may have to do a complete reinstall of the Server O/S,
>> or move the application to another server (which the client will not be
>> enthusiastic about) both seem a bit severe. I am pretty much out of
>> ideas, unless anyone here can provide any insight as I am running out of
>> hair to pull out.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Tom
>>
>>
>
- References:
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- From: Tom S.
- Re: Slow network connection?
- From: Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]
- Re: Slow network connection?
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