[SIMS] Lesson Monitor Slow (Take Register)

[victory2012]

When logging into sims when we select lesson monitor> take register and click on the class it takes almost 30-60 seconds and the window says not responding until the class list comes up? after this selecting another class only takes couple seconds.

is this a fault or is there a way i can fix this?

Thanks

[Edu-IT]

What spec are the machines you've got?

[victory2012]

What spec are the machines you've got?

clients mixture but all around dual core 2gb ram

server is 2003 with 4gb ram

[Edu-IT]

Is this issue consistent across all of the machine?

[victory2012]

Is this issue consistent across all of the machine?

yes am getting it across all machines and even running sims on the server produces the same issue

[Edu-IT]

Probably not related, but, how big is your MDF/LDF file for SIMS?

[victory2012]

mdf 1.6 gig ldf 1mb

[matt40k]

Are you using SQL Standard edition or Express? Is this since an upgrade or something?

[victory2012]

Are you using SQL Standard edition or Express? Is this since an upgrade or something?

we have 2008 express install , only update recently was the lesson monitor licence

[Edu-IT]

Have you spoken to your support unit, whether this be LA or Capita direct? There seems to be a few things to try.

Optimising Edit Marks (Lesson Monitor)

May be helpful.

[matt40k]

Ah, they you go. There is a performance hit when you move to Lesson monitor that I would have hoped they would have discussed with you before. I would recommend you upgrade to Standard edition for starters.

[victory2012]

Ah, they you go. There is a performance hit when you move to Lesson monitor that I would have hoped they would have discussed with you before. I would recommend you upgrade to Standard edition for starters.

thanks matt - why is there a performance hit? do you know if it is documented anywhere so i can use to approach our support , what suggestions would you say we need to improve things except the standard edition, would you sa we should be looking to migrate to a 2008 R2 / 64bit?

also what is the difference in express and standard which hits performance? is this easily upgradable?

[matt40k]

If you were just marking AM\PM, you generally log in and out of SIMS, if you have lesson monitor, you tent to say logged in all day. So you have, say, 100 staff logged in 6 hrs a day rather then, say 1 hr, so that's an extra 5 hrs, the SIMS homepage updates every 5 secs or so, that about 360,000 extra SQL queries - admitting not at once. Also you're moving from 2 marks a day to, say 7, so say 1,000 students, that's 25,000 extra marks per week...

Yer, it's going to cause a lot more load on your server, this before you start looking at all the extra stuff you start using SIMS for like marksheets and so on. It annoys me that Capita Sales people just go, oh yer, no performance hit - like they did when they released the new homepage. I personally don't mind the extra load, it's just you need to account for it, I know it's not easy to work out - it's more a question of waiting and seeing, but at least if the school knows you may need some money set aside for a server\workstation upgrade, they're not going to be shocked when the money they've spent on a Lesson monitor license creates more problems.

4gb is the 32bit limit and as Win2003 is coming end of life, it's worth moving to Win Server 2008 R2, which is x64 as well as getting SQL 2008 R2 standard x64. Key for SQL servers is RAM and discs. Run perfmon and look at your average disc queue length, I think microsoft recommend a max of 3 as a target - you'll get spikes, but it's it's in the 100's from 8am - 4pm, you know you've got disc issues.