SIMS Connected and EduLink sync times

[jthompson]

A question for those using EduLink in conjunction with SIMS Connected.

 

Assuming you have the EduLink sync agent running on a server with the SIMS third-party connector installed, what sorts of full sync times are you seeing for EduLink?

 

We're seeing each full sync take about 8-9 hours now. Just wondering how [a]typical that is and where our expectations ought to be. Our SIMS db will be about 20GB (~1600 pupils on roll) and according to EduLink it's our exams data that's taking the largest chunk of time.

 

Annoying that we're having to sync data from cloud to on-prem back to another cloud, rather than cloud to cloud, but that's where we are.

[cburrows]

yep ours takes about 9 hours and runs overnight, However Edulink have (i am sure you know) added a couple features for updating Docs and contacts and that sync only takes 10 mins (ish) Edited October 5, 2023 by cburrows

[David44]

If you want a comparison, we have SIMS on premises, just over 1600 students and probably a similar sized database as you and our sync took 4 hours and 15 minutes last night. I have seen it take 5 before too.

[jthompson]

That's helpful, thanks. After we first migrated it was taking about 14 hours, so dropping us from twice a day refresh to only once a day, with the occasional fail. Quite a bit of tidying up of SIMS data by our data officer has dropped it to its current 8-9 hours. We've also got a few other sync agents running too, which I'm sure won't be helping matters.

 

I do feel like we should be charging ESS for running the third-party connector on an on-prem server, not the other way around. We're paying for them to not run a cloud API.

[coolhands]

5 hours 25 mins here

[PotNoodleTech]

That's a bit worrying - 5 - 10 hour sync sounds like it's copying the entire sims database rather than just the info it needs?

[FragglePete]

On prem SIMS with 1400 students takes 1hr 40mins to do a full sync. I do have the agent running on the same server as SIMS. Did used to have it on a seperate server which was fine and then after a while it started taking longer and longer, which is why I moved it to the SIMS Server directly to see if it would help. In the end, it turned out to be our SIMS database needed cleaning up and defragging - numerous timetable changes by our timetabler seem to mess things up a bit.

 

Pete

[jthompson]

On prem SIMS with 1400 students takes 1hr 40mins to do a full sync. I do have the agent running on the same server as SIMS. Did used to have it on a seperate server which was fine and then after a while it started taking longer and longer, which is why I moved it to the SIMS Server directly to see if it would help. In the end, it turned out to be our SIMS database needed cleaning up and defragging - numerous timetable changes by our timetabler seem to mess things up a bit.

 

Pete

 

I've a feeling that that was the sort of duration we were seeing when we were running SIMS on prem. I think maybe the VPN aspect of SIMS Connected is proving to be a substantial bottleneck in this regard.

[mrhall]

Ours has ballooned to 12 hours to sync. Any tips as to the kind of data tidying we can run?

[jthompson]

Our data manager did contact EduLink support about it, who were able to provide some more granular data on how long the sync of various different types of data were taking. IIRC the lion's share of it was exams related (entries and timetables for current or upcoming exam series). Not too much you can do about that, I shouldn't think, but our data manager did subsequently clear out historical records of pupils and parent contacts that were no longer needing to be stored, which I think may have imporved things. Presumably just from speeding up db queries rather than reducing the volume of data heading to EduLink.

 

TLDR: EduLink support should be able to point you in the right direction and give you an idea of the sorts of questions you can ask of ESS support.