[sims] SIMS running slow - what's the ideal virtual config for Hyper-V VM as SIMS server?

[rpycroft]

Hi all,

 

We've been having major headache with our SIMS server running slowly for some time now. Not sure if it's something to do with the fact that it is a Hyper-V virtual machine or some other reason.

 

What is the ideal configuration for a Hyper-V VM that is set up as our SIMS server? IE: What CPU, RAM, Disk conifiguration etc should I have it set as?

 

We have ours currently set up with a massively overpowered 12 CPU cores, 24GB RAM (with 16GB set aside for SQL 2008 R2). We also have it connected up to a Dell Equallogic PS4100. We have no other issues on other servers with regards to things running slow and all our other servers are on the same SAN and physical server setup.

 

We've have several people from Capita, local authority and other outside agencies looking at this over some time but no one has been able to come up with anything. If there's anyone out there that has a similar config and things are running great for you I'd love to hear how you have it set up.

 

OK, thanks for taking the time to look at this anyway.

 

Richard

[Steve21]

Honestly just think it's SIMs. Doesn't seem to matter what you give it it's never exactly lightning speeds.

 

But in terms of official specs only thing I'd query is your RAM, as we were told 256-512Mb "Per user" when we've been looking at replacing our SIMs server.

 

Seems a bit overkill as like 100 staff here would be up to 50GB~ if all hitting it at once, but yeah... SIMS

 

Other thing I'd say is have you re-run the indexing patch on the database?

 

Steve

[dezt]

We run it on a Hyper-V VM, 4 processors and 8Gb ram, 2 Hdd's, primary 320Gb and secondary 200Gb. This was the same spec the LA tried to sell us a server for when we had to upgrade last year to support SQL 2012. It runs fine for us for about 60 staff using it.

[jinnantonnixx]

How are your disks configured? If you've got one disk, with the server OS, tempDBs, swap file, data files and log files all sharing the same LUN then you have an uphill battle.

 

But the first thing I'd do is start SQL Activity Monitor. This is a nice tool that gives you a good overview of what's going on.

 

http://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/1917/performance-analysis-using-sql-server-2008-activity-monitor-tool/

 

SQL Server Activity Monitor - SQL Shack - articles about database auditing, server performance, data recovery, and more

 

Have a look at your 'waiting tasks' graph. What sort of numbers do you have?

Edited March 17, 2015 by jinnantonnixx

[zag]

Your using too much ram.

 

10GB perfect I think for a large school.

 

SQL server will use as much as it can, and too much will add to the CPU usage.

[jinnantonnixx]

That's why it's important to set the max memory value in SQL Server. If not, you could end up with a weirdly unresponsive machine, even though it has more than enough memory. SQL server might not be able to release memory back to the OS fast enough to prevent the OS from paging.

 

As a ready reckoner, subtract (as an example) 4Gig from your virtual machine RAM and assign this value to the max memory for SQL Server. This ensures that the OS has enough memory to function happily without relying on SQL to release memory.

 

https://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/jonathan/wow-an-online-calculator-to-misconfigure-your-sql-server-memory/

Edited March 17, 2015 by jinnantonnixx

[Drenlin]

An older article but simpler to understand if you need a basic guideline.

Still relevant for SQL 2012/2014

https://sqlserverperformance.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/suggested-max-memory-settings-for-sql-server-20052008/

[gglidden]

We are running slow here at the moment as well, have been for about the last 10 days.

 

A colleague has noted KB109255 appearing on the Capita Support site on 17 Feb which he's going to do out of hours to see if it had any impact. Looks like the usual reindex and statistics update work.

 

We have a 32GB server. When we first noticed a slowdown, SQL Server was at 29GB so I've limited that to 20GB but the issue is back. Note however we have still seen it slow using 15GB. Interestingly when the server was hard at it, running SIMS on the server started complaining about it being an old version, after a reboot it was fine.

 

I am also noticing using the free Idera SQL Check tool (https://www.idera.com/) that it shows some processes with issues from the FMS clients we have on, so I'm going to get them to log off to see if performance improves. Might be worth checking in your case.

 

As ever, we've done some SIMS and INSIGHT upgrades as well in the past few days so we are at a bit of a loss as to where the issue is.

 

Update: Not an FMS issue; got the two users off and performance did not improve.

Edited March 17, 2015 by gglidden
Updated regarding FMS clients

[pickman]

We had similar problems and below is the response I got from captia

 

Most of this has probably been done or not relevant so I ignored most of it. but the patches seemed to do the job

 

Workaround

Regular timeout errors/crashes are appearing within Attendance 7 / Lesson Monitor 7. Timeouts/crashes can appear within various areas of the two modules mentioned, from running a report to editing students' marks.

 

Since 2007 we have made a 60% reduction on the memory resources. We will continue to improve this with every release. We aim to completely address this memory issue fully in a future release of SIMS .net.

 

Until this release, please follow the workarounds below:

 

1. Stop and restart the SQL Server. It is recommended to do this when all users are logged out of the system, for example in the morning or evening.

 

2. Extend the CommandTimeout setting within your connect.ini to 600 or 1200. E.g. CommandTimeout=600

 

3. Try running this routine on another workstation and also on the server itself.

 

4. Check the specifications of the affected workstation and ensure that it meets the minimum SIMS .net software requirements - Please go to Support Net and download the documentation from sticky Items area - SIMS .net System Requirements Document.

 

5. Then try running this routine on a server when no other users are logged in – For example in the morning or evening when all other users are logged out of the system.

 

6. Run Database Diagnostic and Validate Memberships - SIMS .net | Tools | System Diagnostics | Database Diagnostic and SIMS .net | Tools | Validate Memberships.

 

(Note: If you have not done so already, please apply Patch 19557 before running Database Diagnostics. This patch activates and extends the versions of some Database Diagnostic fixes. It also rectifies an issue where in certain circumstances running Database Diagnostics removes Exceptional Circumstance # and Y codes that have been entered. This patch will be included in the Autumn 14 release of SIMS, v7.160 and above need not apply this patch).

 

7. Archive Attendance Marks - For further information on this please refer to the Lesson Monitor and Attendance handbooks which can be found here: Handbooks

 

8. Apply the Re-Index Patch 14265 and the update table statistics Patch 15589.

 

(Note: The Re-Index Patch 14265 should only be applied when all users are logged out of the SIMS system, after school for example).

 

9. Check for any conflicting, corrupt or high memory using Anti-Virus software on the system, as this may have detrimental effects on SIMS.net.

 

10. Check whether you are using an express version of SQL and the size of your SIMS database. Express versions of SQL have a database size limit - we recommend considering an upgrade to a full SQL licence as errors can be caused when the SIMS database grows in size (due to data being stored for several years for example) and then hits the SQL Express database size limit.

 

SQL Server Express size limits (correct at time of writing):

2014, 2012, 2008 R2 - 10GB per database

2008, 2005 and earlier - 4GB per database

 

11. Uninstall and Re-install SIMS on the affected Workstation(s).

[john]

I would think that number of vCPU Cores is going to be not assisting assuming you meant vCPUs assigned to the Hyper-V VM rather than what is in the base server?

 

I put on a different thread on this matter that you need to get into the science behind the CPUs and Numanodes around it all and how they translate to vCPUs, with our blades we run we here which have Intel E5-2630 Xeon CPUs in them we never go above 4 sockets with 1 Core in VMware on any VM as it will get worse when you get beyond that due to how VMware will map the vCpus to the physical CPUs, like others have said you can over-do the ram you can also over-do the CPUs.

 

Don't know what the base CPUs are in yours and its not my strongest point how this all maps out but bring them back down to a max of 4 vCPUs with 1 core each and see how that helps and take some advice from above on the ram allocation and see if that helps, if you get the CPU allocation wrong it will spend time waiting for cycles and things and that will contribute to poor performance.

[nicholab]

What spec have people used with a separate sql and sims server? This is how you want to run it especially with the way sql cost so much you only want one instance per site. Edited March 17, 2015 by nicholab