Hosted Sims - VPN Connection Speed

[mitchell1981]

Hi All,

 

We are using hosted Sims, with a single server on site connected via VPN to provide essential services.

 

However, the performance on this VPN connected machines is poor.

 

When pinging our Sims host from our on site server we get response times like this:

 

 

We have a 1Gbps Fibre connection, and internet performance is generally great. I don't expect a VPN to be perfect, but it is regularly timing out, and crashing, and as a result, scheduled tasks are failing to connect.

 

Can anyone else running hosted Sims do a similar test on their VPN, just to see what they get for comparison please?

 

We are talking to support, and after a day of fiddling they are saying it is our problem!

 

Thanks.

Edited September 20, 2021 by mitchell1981

[supportman]

Honestly hosted Sims is just a hack really, its not designed to be hosted at all. It really is time to get a proper cloud MIS like Arbour or Bromcom.

[mitchell1981]

Believe me I know this!

 

We had a cyber attack and local Sims was completely lost. I recommended that we move to a proper cloud based MIS, but was overruled on the basis that it was 'too much change during a stressful time'! So hosted Sims was chosen instead. Crazy desicion in my opinion, as we had the opportunity to start from scratch with something new and modern. I'm hoping that a year of the horrible logon process will be enough to give the kick we need to move to something better! In the meantime we are stuck trying to get it to work properly.

[supportman]

Yeh I hear you. We've all been in those situations where people above make poor decisions in times of crisis just so they dont rock the boat.

 

We moved from Sims to Bromcom over a year ago and there wasnt any stress really. More like relief from staff being able to use a modern MIS.

[mitchell1981]

Hi all, sorry, just bumping this as we are still having horrible problems with our Hosted Sims VPN on our Third party Connector server. Slow pings, packets dropped etc.. Edulink which connects via this server is failing to update, and other services are failing to sync reliably due to the issues.

 

Case is open with ESS but not going anywhere fast. They keep saying they have tweaked the settings but nothing changes at our end.

 

If anyone with the same Hosted Sims setup could just run a ping on their third party server to their Sims Host and let me know what sort of results you get I would be grateful, just so we can find out if it's just us with the problem.

 

Edulink have suggested they may have other schools experiencing the same problems.

 

Thanks.

[Edu-IT]

I’ll try on Monday for you.

[robk]

I have a case open with ESS, they have requested we turn off the VPN while they "test". Hopefully they will find something!

[NotSoFast]

We are in the same boat. ESS tried to blame it on us /Edulink for a while. They've now accepted it's a problem they need to fix, but don't yet know what is causing it.

[chaplic]

the ping values are not great but I'm not sure drive such poor performance. From what I know of sims, it uses pretty old protocols that wont work well over higher latency/ non LAN connections, but I wonder if something like TCP window size could be an issue. Might be worthwhile reducing that as a punt on a test pc. But can you run wireshark and take a capture during perforamnce issues to see if anything stands out.

[denzal2k4]

I have a case open with ESS, they have requested we turn off the VPN while they "test". Hopefully they will find something!

 

They have done this with us a couple of times, I wouldn't get your hopes up it feels very much like they are clutching at straws, with us they have tried a new vpn config and certificate, restarting their firewall, other "improvements" none of which have helped at all.

[NotSoFast]

Update: still broken. I assume it's the same for others on the thread?

[mitchell1981]

No improvement for us either.

 

Regarding chaplic's suggestion, I'm not sure it it applies as the VPN uses UDP rather than TCP. I may be wrong as I'm not an expert on how these protocols work.

 

I have played around with the MTU on the connection, but to no effect. I'm not sure if this setting needs tweaking at both ends though which I cannot do.

 

Here is a screen shot of the VPN log, and the current ping situation.

 

[chaplic]

I did actually mean MTU size, well done for interpreting my its-been-a-long-day post ;-)

 

That looks like openvpn, so can be UDP or TCP. I'm by no means a openvpn expert but I assume the config would tell you. I'd also be tempted to fiddle with it to change proto to see if their far end supports it too.

 

assuming it is even connected it looks like the far is not listening for a bit then a reconnection is happening? could be connection 'dropped', load balancer delivering traffic to wrong device their end, overly picky IPS at your end.

 

Can you repro it from another environment with as little network infra at your end as possible (e.g. in azure). It does sound like the supplier are just doing IT101 as a punt, which is fine for a firstline task, not for intermittent ongoing issues

[denzal2k4]

Had an update on our ticket:

 

Good afternoon,

 

We are aware of an issue where some Hosted SIMS customers are encountering errors when attempting to Sync their third party apps with SIMS or when attempting to login to the SIMS .net Client on the third party connector device.

 

This issue is currently under investigation as a priority and a further update will be provided by 16:30 today

 

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

 

Kind Regards,

 

SIMS Support

[robk]

Have just re-opened my ticket with a "its def not fixed!" message, 19% packet loss and nothing completing database extracts..

[robk]

@denzal2k4 Did you get any update from ESS? Nothing showing on my ticket, last update 5 days ago..

 

- - - Updated - - -

@denzal2k4 Did you get any update from ESS? Nothing showing on my ticket, last update 5 days ago..

[3s-gtech]

I eagerly await our move to hosted SIMS.

[mitchell1981]

Latest update:

 

Good afternoon,

 

We are continuing to investigate this issue. If you have a case open with your support provider, can we ask, that if you have not already done so, could you to provide the names of the 3rd Party applications you are using.

 

We apologise for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your patience while this issue has been on-going. A further update will be provided by 16:30 on Tuesday, 12th October.

 

Kind Regards,

 

SIMS Support

[mitchell1981]

Hosted Sims down for us completely now. Not sure if just us or everyone?

 

Can anyone confirm?

 

We just get this:

 

[robk]

Some staff here seeing that error.

[NotSoFast]

Yes, we've had some people unable to connect over RDP today.

[denzal2k4]

Touch wood, ours seems fairly reliable at the moment, I realize it is holidays so low usage but not dropping any pings and 3rd party tools are running ok.

[mitchell1981]

Our Sims Hosted connection is running terribly again. Is anyone else experiencing the same? Reluctant to log a ticket as ESS are about to switch to a new helpdesk system in a couple of days time!

[NotSoFast]

Ours has been fine, touch wood...