Slow sims - improvements?

[the_quick]

Hi All

 

General question, as it is almost impossible to pin down.

 

Do people have tips how to cure slow sims operations? Today our attendance reported that running fire registers is very slow or basically crashes after few minutes.. Tried myself and yes, very slow, after few minute ( i had stopwatch in my hand) those finally appeared - usually it takes around 30 sec, but not today. Tried other big reports, like attendance marks for whole school, again very long waiting time - it is usually much faster.

 

Checked sims server, it is running 8% CPU, 75% ram - 16GB SQL server (set max as 21), no big processes running in the background, no one is running any massive reports. It is really quiet week for us, more than half of the school is off site.

Can't figure it out, LDF file is 1.7GB - is it too big?

 

We have not done any windows updates, no new installations on the server. Nothing in the event viewer. Might restart it in the evening, maybe it will fix the problem.

 

If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.Thanks

[TDupont992]

How old is the server? I'd give it a restart and that could fix it. Could also bring new problems to light lol.

 

SIMS is generally clunky, may be time to look at another MIS but ofc I understand that's a biiig ordeal.

[PotNoodleTech]

What hard disks has it got? If they're mechanical and yo do not have bucketloads of RAM then SIMS will be writing from RAM to HDD often which slows things right down.

[the_quick]

HI,

 

It is a VM connected through a host to a Equallogic SAN. I don't thinks is the disk write speed, as the issue would present itself much sooner. Database file is 17GB in size, server has 24GB allocated, but not using it all , around 75% - so sql still have ram to "play" with.

IN runs n SQL 2016 with Windows Server 2016, been running in that configuration for almost a year.

 

Will restart the server later tonight and see what happens.

 

Thanks for your replies

[Chris_Cook]

Is anyone doing timetabling or admissions for next year?

 

There are some of these things that block other users from using sims whilst they are running. It won't necessarily show up in task manager.

[the_quick]

So bit of update, no one was doing any timetabling. Forgot to restart in the evening. Came back today and hey presto all working fine today. No clue. But going to leave it just like that.

[synaesthesia]

SIMS in a car world would be like an original Morris Minor, where someone has replaced the bodywork with that of a 2019 plate Hummer. It's still the same engine underneath but it's so heavy under it's own load....

[jinnantonnixx]

SIMS in a car world would be like an original Morris Minor, where someone has replaced the bodywork with that of a 2019 plate Hummer. It's still the same engine underneath but it's so heavy under it's own load....

 

Never one to resist a car analogy, it's like a car with jammed brakes and flat tyres. Rather than fix the brakes and tyres, the garage recommends a bigger, more powerful engine to overcome the problems.

 

 

Joking aside, what's the compatibility level suggested for SIMS these days? I remember this:

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/147490-sims-slow-after-upgrade-sql-2014-a.html

 

 

Another gotcha is the version of SQL in use not licensed to use all the available processors / cores.

The giveaway is some of your processors showing as maxed out in Task Manager, while the others are just kicking back and chilling.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/editions-and-components-of-sql-server-2017?view=sql-server-2017

 

If you're OK with SQL queries, this will tell you if all processors/cores are available to SQL. You should see 'VISIBLE ONLINE' against your processors.

select cpu_id,scheduler_id,is_online, current_tasks_count, status  from sys.dm_os_schedulers
where status IN ('VISIBLE OFFLINE', 'VISIBLE ONLINE')

Edited July 15, 2019 by jinnantonnixx

[the_quick]

Thanks @Jinnantonixx I think we are license for 4 cores and that what VM server has, but will run the query. CPU was 8% but I didn't check how the cores loads looks like.

 

 

Update:

Edited July 15, 2019 by the_quick

[Damon]

It's worth setting up an SQL maintenance task to re-index the DB on a regular basis. There's a thread on here from a few years back. Will try and dig it up but it had a very similar title to yours!

 

Liking the car analogies!