[sims] SIMS Database suddenly increased in size by 50%

[vikpaw]

Would be interesting to see the same query run on a backup prior to the growth.

 

Presumably no recent updates, upgrades, patches etc.?

[BKGarry]

nope, this happened before the reindex patch, and no updates applied.

[BKGarry]

And here is the great mystery, restored the older MDF and LDF onto a different server (the LDF is 75GB!!!!!!) ran the same query and there is around 100mb difference in the top tables all together, and no difference on the ASM one.

 

I am now executing a backup and a shrink of the logs on the restored one, to see if I can get the same effect

[BKGarry]

FYI, reducing the log file did not do it!

 

This is going to be a mystery, capita may see something though :-)

[BKGarry]

So Capita have had a remote connection to our server and have said that our DB size if perfectly fine for a school of our size :-/

[splattthecat]

@bkbarry do you use SIMS Discover, and if so is there much assessment customisation within it? Also do you have track changes enabled in SIMS - Tools | Setups | data Change Management - both of these have caused us issues in the past as the overnight Discover transfer process is not very efficient.

[BKGarry]

@splattthecat

 

We very rarely use discover (we have 4Matrix for that) and I can confirm that change management is turned off

Edited November 27, 2018 by elsiegee40

[vikpaw]

Wow, what a response. I guess in theory, that's ok, for a 1500 pupil school, that's had SIMS for several years.

However, the query was on the rapid growth, which seems to have been ignored.

 

I would want to do a lot of digging and comparisons, but to be honest, if you are not seeing any performance degradation (compared to usual) and it's not affecting your ability to backup, your best bet is to just monitor it.

 

I used to have emails setup to let me know if the backup was successful or not, you could probably do similar and pull in the db size as well.

 

If you are going to investigate the next area to look at is things like add-in attendance software which or other third party links which may or may not also have write-back capabilities.

[BKGarry]

Thank you @vikpaw I am going to wait and see what I get as a response back.

 

After reindexing it doesn't seem to be that bad, they also said that there is not any one table or area where it seems to be using all the space. It is just a massive balloon on that one day that doesn't seemed to have happened again. I have two pieces of software with writeback functionality, one is Salamandersoft's AD sync, which writes back email addresses only and the other is classcharts, and I checked there, and there wasn't a mass amount of data.

 

I am very confused.

[vikpaw]

Salamander are kosher, but worth checking with Richard and the team, just in case.

 

Not sure what classcharts does exactly but it could be the culprit. That or some kind of general piece of data that has updated across the board.

 

7MB for a 1000 students is a lot, so it leans towards a file/email/photo being added.

 

Unless there are other tables that you’re not capturing or index growth or something strange.

[BKGarry]

I am afraid Classcharts writes back behaviour and achievement and that is not it.

 

Now files, that is an interesting one, although it wouldn't be 7mb per student, we have had people scanning in old data collection sheets, but I thought that would go to the document server

[vikpaw]

It should... unless it makes a difference how they add, and the file type.

I know images get stored as blobs which can be v.large.

[matt40k]

I am afraid Classcharts writes back behaviour and achievement and that is not it.

 

Now files, that is an interesting one, although it wouldn't be 7mb per student, we have had people scanning in old data collection sheets, but I thought that would go to the document server

 

Sounds like one for @David_Grashoff

[BKGarry]

I have passed it back to our LA support.

 

I bet something has got lost in translation over to Capita.

 

To be honest, I'm not as worried now as I haven't has any massive massive jump since but still a very strange thing to happen IMHO