Anyone out there with 100+ users & 10GB+ db

We run over 200 users and our database is 14GB in size running on an HP
Proliant with 4 Intel Xeon 3.06 processors and 4 GB of RAM with Windows
Server 2003 and Vantage 6. We did purchase a new server for Vantage 8
for when we upgrade. We too were experiencing a lot of white screens and
slowness with Vantage. We run a RAID environment similar to yours. We
came to find that the bottleneck was in Disk I/O. We purchased a 30GB
RAMSAN which is basically an all memory device that attaches to your
server via SCSI. Our database sits on this RAMSAN and it instantly
eliminated our problems, allowing the server to use more of it's
processor power and memory and not bottlenecking at the disk. It is a
high cost, but well worth it in a bigger environment.



________________________________

From: charles06072006 [mailto:shadow031449@...]
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 8:59 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Re: Anyone out there with 100+ users & 10GB+ db



We don't have nearly that large of a database but I do know if you
are attempting to run that many users with only 4 GB of ram you are
in big trouble. If you look at the Vantage hardware sizing guide you
will see that is really on good for up to about 40 users. With that
size of database you are also doing an enormous amount of paging.
Epicor recommends memory buffers allocated to the database at 1.5
times the size of your database. That means you would need 18 GB
allocated just to the database buffers. Although that is probably
extreme I do know from experience that the more memory (within
reason) you can allocate to the database buffers the better
performance you will get. Of course, that specification is for
Vantage 8.03 but I doubt if there would be a lot of difference for
Vantage 6.

--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com> ,
"Cliff Drumeller" <cliff@...> wrote:
>
> I would like to contact other large users out there. We are
having
> speed issues as we have grown to 144 users and have a 12 GB+
database.
> My server is a Compaq ML370 with dual 2.4 Ghz, 4 GB ram dual Raid
One
> arrays ( one for OS and Vantage, One for Vantage DB). Running
Vantage 6.
>
> I would like to know what other large users are doing to
maintain
> Vantage speed. There are times when users sit for 30 seconds or
longer
> waiting for a new screen to come up. That used to take less than 5
> seconds.
>
> I have ten years of data. Would a purge /dump and reload be
> worthwhile ? What kind of speed increase have others seen from
this ?
>
> Cliff Drumeller
> IT Manager
> Mass Precision Sheetmetal, Inc.
> 408 786 0348
> 408 314 7420 Cell
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
I would like to contact other large users out there. We are having
speed issues as we have grown to 144 users and have a 12 GB+ database.
My server is a Compaq ML370 with dual 2.4 Ghz, 4 GB ram dual Raid One
arrays ( one for OS and Vantage, One for Vantage DB). Running Vantage 6.

I would like to know what other large users are doing to maintain
Vantage speed. There are times when users sit for 30 seconds or longer
waiting for a new screen to come up. That used to take less than 5
seconds.

I have ten years of data. Would a purge /dump and reload be
worthwhile ? What kind of speed increase have others seen from this ?

Cliff Drumeller
IT Manager
Mass Precision Sheetmetal, Inc.
408 786 0348
408 314 7420 Cell


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Cliff,

I would recommend you look at the cause of the bottle
neck with some performance tools

Perfmon and Promon are a good start, but it will probably be Disk.



Vantage 6 server side is only acting as a Database server, unlike
Vantage 8+ where the application logic also gets executed,

So you will probably find the CPU is not that Taxed.



I would recommend the following

Dump and Load to get your database into a clean state.

Index rebuild (part of the dump and load process)



Upgrade your disk subsystem.

For better performance look at a configuration such as this



Raid 1 (OS and Vantage Binaries)

Raid 1 (Progress Log File)

Raid 10 (6 Disk configuration Vantage DB)

Depending on analysis of the Disk you may find it useful beneficial to
have the page file and working directories on separate spindles also.



Increasing the Ram would also help, as would purging old records.



Splitting the Logs and the DB onto separate disks helps as

They produce conflicting IO, DB access being more random and Log access
being more Sequential.



Regards,

Stephen





From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Cliff Drumeller
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 5:26 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Anyone out there with 100+ users & 10GB+ db



I would like to contact other large users out there. We are having
speed issues as we have grown to 144 users and have a 12 GB+ database.
My server is a Compaq ML370 with dual 2.4 Ghz, 4 GB ram dual Raid One
arrays ( one for OS and Vantage, One for Vantage DB). Running Vantage 6.

I would like to know what other large users are doing to maintain
Vantage speed. There are times when users sit for 30 seconds or longer
waiting for a new screen to come up. That used to take less than 5
seconds.

I have ten years of data. Would a purge /dump and reload be
worthwhile ? What kind of speed increase have others seen from this ?

Cliff Drumeller
IT Manager
Mass Precision Sheetmetal, Inc.
408 786 0348
408 314 7420 Cell

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Cliff,

I came from a place that had over 180 users and a 25 GB db, and on
version 6.1.

One thing you definitely have to increase is the RAM on your server.

Also follow what Stephen said....



M. Manasa Reddy
manasa@...
P: 630-806-2000
F: 630-806-2001


________________________________

From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Cliff Drumeller
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 11:26 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Anyone out there with 100+ users & 10GB+ db



I would like to contact other large users out there. We are having
speed issues as we have grown to 144 users and have a 12 GB+ database.
My server is a Compaq ML370 with dual 2.4 Ghz, 4 GB ram dual Raid One
arrays ( one for OS and Vantage, One for Vantage DB). Running Vantage 6.

I would like to know what other large users are doing to maintain
Vantage speed. There are times when users sit for 30 seconds or longer
waiting for a new screen to come up. That used to take less than 5
seconds.

I have ten years of data. Would a purge /dump and reload be
worthwhile ? What kind of speed increase have others seen from this ?

Cliff Drumeller
IT Manager
Mass Precision Sheetmetal, Inc.
408 786 0348
408 314 7420 Cell

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Stephen

I'm sure my bottleneck is at the disk drive also. I already have my DB
on a separate three disk raid one 15K drive set. The only thing on the
db raid is the DB folder and the backup for it's online backup. See
screen shot of DB folder.


I'm running Win2K3 standard. If I were to go to Enterprise, I could
increase the ram. Do you know if you can load the whole database into
ram ? Would this remove the disk bottleneck, as it would only be doing
writes to the disk ?

Any idea how long a dump and load takes on a 12 GB database ?

I'm unsure as to which log files you are referring..

I gather your Raid 10 is a mirror with a hot spare x 2. In a Raid 10,
does the secondary set work a just a backup or is it accessed giving you
another set of read/write spindles ?

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated ..

Cliff


________________________________

From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Stephen Edginton
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 9:42 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Anyone out there with 100+ users & 10GB+ db



Cliff,

I would recommend you look at the cause of the bottle
neck with some performance tools

Perfmon and Promon are a good start, but it will probably be Disk.

Vantage 6 server side is only acting as a Database server, unlike
Vantage 8+ where the application logic also gets executed,

So you will probably find the CPU is not that Taxed.

I would recommend the following

Dump and Load to get your database into a clean state.

Index rebuild (part of the dump and load process)

Upgrade your disk subsystem.

For better performance look at a configuration such as this

Raid 1 (OS and Vantage Binaries)

Raid 1 (Progress Log File)

Raid 10 (6 Disk configuration Vantage DB)

Depending on analysis of the Disk you may find it useful beneficial to
have the page file and working directories on separate spindles also.

Increasing the Ram would also help, as would purging old records.

Splitting the Logs and the DB onto separate disks helps as

They produce conflicting IO, DB access being more random and Log access
being more Sequential.

Regards,

Stephen

From: vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com>
[mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com> ] On
Behalf
Of Cliff Drumeller
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 5:26 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [Vantage] Anyone out there with 100+ users & 10GB+ db

I would like to contact other large users out there. We are having
speed issues as we have grown to 144 users and have a 12 GB+ database.
My server is a Compaq ML370 with dual 2.4 Ghz, 4 GB ram dual Raid One
arrays ( one for OS and Vantage, One for Vantage DB). Running Vantage 6.

I would like to know what other large users are doing to maintain
Vantage speed. There are times when users sit for 30 seconds or longer
waiting for a new screen to come up. That used to take less than 5
seconds.

I have ten years of data. Would a purge /dump and reload be
worthwhile ? What kind of speed increase have others seen from this ?

Cliff Drumeller
IT Manager
Mass Precision Sheetmetal, Inc.
408 786 0348
408 314 7420 Cell

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Cliff,

If you have a 3 disk raid at the moment then I hope it
is Raid 1 with 1 hot spare and not a Raid 5.



The Database consists of a BI file and a DB file.

You can also separate out individual tables onto separate disks (but I
doubt that is necessary for you)



By modifying the .st file in the database directory you can point to BI
file to a separate disk and

Reduce the conflicting IO that occurs.



With W2K3 32bit standard, you will only address up to 4GB Ram. Of this
you will find only 2GB usable,

Unless you use the /3GB boot.ini switch which adjusts the user mode /
kernel mode ram distribution slightly.



W2K3 Enterprise will allow you to address more Ram.

You should be able to load more of the DB into Ram,

But it will have to hit the disk at some point.



Newer controller cards with additional cache and battery backed will
also provide better performance.



Raid 10 in a 6 disk configuration is 3 disks stripped then these 3 disks
are mirrored onto another set of 3.

If you server does not physically have the space for this look into the
DAS (direct attached storage options)

Much cheaper than a SAN alternative, and better performance then most
iScsi solutions.



Regards,

Stephen



From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Cliff Drumeller
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 7:38 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Anyone out there with 100+ users & 10GB+ db



Stephen

I'm sure my bottleneck is at the disk drive also. I already have my DB
on a separate three disk raid one 15K drive set. The only thing on the
db raid is the DB folder and the backup for it's online backup. See
screen shot of DB folder.


I'm running Win2K3 standard. If I were to go to Enterprise, I could
increase the ram. Do you know if you can load the whole database into
ram ? Would this remove the disk bottleneck, as it would only be doing
writes to the disk ?

Any idea how long a dump and load takes on a 12 GB database ?

I'm unsure as to which log files you are referring..

I gather your Raid 10 is a mirror with a hot spare x 2. In a Raid 10,
does the secondary set work a just a backup or is it accessed giving you
another set of read/write spindles ?

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated ..

Cliff


________________________________

From: vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com>
[mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com> ] On
Behalf
Of Stephen Edginton
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 9:42 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com>
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Anyone out there with 100+ users & 10GB+ db

Cliff,

I would recommend you look at the cause of the bottle
neck with some performance tools

Perfmon and Promon are a good start, but it will probably be Disk.

Vantage 6 server side is only acting as a Database server, unlike
Vantage 8+ where the application logic also gets executed,

So you will probably find the CPU is not that Taxed.

I would recommend the following

Dump and Load to get your database into a clean state.

Index rebuild (part of the dump and load process)

Upgrade your disk subsystem.

For better performance look at a configuration such as this

Raid 1 (OS and Vantage Binaries)

Raid 1 (Progress Log File)

Raid 10 (6 Disk configuration Vantage DB)

Depending on analysis of the Disk you may find it useful beneficial to
have the page file and working directories on separate spindles also.

Increasing the Ram would also help, as would purging old records.

Splitting the Logs and the DB onto separate disks helps as

They produce conflicting IO, DB access being more random and Log access
being more Sequential.

Regards,

Stephen

From: vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com>
<mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com>
[mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com>
<mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com> ] On
Behalf
Of Cliff Drumeller
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 5:26 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com>
<mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [Vantage] Anyone out there with 100+ users & 10GB+ db

I would like to contact other large users out there. We are having
speed issues as we have grown to 144 users and have a 12 GB+ database.
My server is a Compaq ML370 with dual 2.4 Ghz, 4 GB ram dual Raid One
arrays ( one for OS and Vantage, One for Vantage DB). Running Vantage 6.

I would like to know what other large users are doing to maintain
Vantage speed. There are times when users sit for 30 seconds or longer
waiting for a new screen to come up. That used to take less than 5
seconds.

I have ten years of data. Would a purge /dump and reload be
worthwhile ? What kind of speed increase have others seen from this ?

Cliff Drumeller
IT Manager
Mass Precision Sheetmetal, Inc.
408 786 0348
408 314 7420 Cell





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
We don't have nearly that large of a database but I do know if you
are attempting to run that many users with only 4 GB of ram you are
in big trouble. If you look at the Vantage hardware sizing guide you
will see that is really on good for up to about 40 users. With that
size of database you are also doing an enormous amount of paging.
Epicor recommends memory buffers allocated to the database at 1.5
times the size of your database. That means you would need 18 GB
allocated just to the database buffers. Although that is probably
extreme I do know from experience that the more memory (within
reason) you can allocate to the database buffers the better
performance you will get. Of course, that specification is for
Vantage 8.03 but I doubt if there would be a lot of difference for
Vantage 6.


--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "Cliff Drumeller" <cliff@...> wrote:
>
> I would like to contact other large users out there. We are
having
> speed issues as we have grown to 144 users and have a 12 GB+
database.
> My server is a Compaq ML370 with dual 2.4 Ghz, 4 GB ram dual Raid
One
> arrays ( one for OS and Vantage, One for Vantage DB). Running
Vantage 6.
>
> I would like to know what other large users are doing to
maintain
> Vantage speed. There are times when users sit for 30 seconds or
longer
> waiting for a new screen to come up. That used to take less than 5
> seconds.
>
> I have ten years of data. Would a purge /dump and reload be
> worthwhile ? What kind of speed increase have others seen from
this ?
>
> Cliff Drumeller
> IT Manager
> Mass Precision Sheetmetal, Inc.
> 408 786 0348
> 408 314 7420 Cell
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>