Slow SIMS server

[chazzy2501]

have you archived the attendance records.... ever. it helped a little my end. My records went back to 2004! 

[ozydave]

17 minutes ago, chazzy2501 said:

have you archived the attendance records.... ever. it helped a little my end. My records went back to 2004! 

Yep, we archived all but the last 2 years & run the patches 20647 and 22573

[bobsmith]

When we ran SIMs on-prem I had 2 servers for doing what you're doing.

A pure SIMs server - no other crap allowed on it.

A "SIMS third party server" - wonde, groupcall, zinet and command reporter would all use that machine instead.

definitely helped us.

[chazzy2501]

I wasn't aware but Wonde sync every 2-3 hours... They can upon request, make it sync out of hours.  I've just today asked them to do this and I'll see if it stops the random blue circles of wait that plague my SIMs server.

 

we use classcharts (through Wonde) so this might create large SQL oddities.

Edited January 9 by chazzy2501

[pete]

When we were running SIMS, we found the index optimizing routines here useful:

https://ola.hallengren.com/sql-server-index-and-statistics-maintenance.html

[SL_Thing]

We are having the same issue with migrating to SQL2022 (from 2012, previous network managers to me had not done anything as my last school we did SQL2016 a long time ago).

 

Tried all the usual patches, and the advice on this page with MXDOP etc, still makes not much difference.

 

Takes 50ish minutes to run a backup, last night when we finished the update stats patch, it took nearly an hour to unlock the database.

 

I really wish i could convince the powers to move to Abor, it is much much better. arghhhhh

[mthomas08]

I do not miss SIMs.

 

Even when Bromcom goes down.. and when it does.. it really goes down.

 

I do not miss SIMs.

 

The hours.. days.. weeks.. I put in to trying to fix the memory crashes..  the slow performance..  oh god did I try everything.

 

-did a rebuild

-migrated to a new VM

-upgraded specs

-PC upgrades

-endless amount of recording logs etc

-long list of patches and many of them were performance related

-long list of things within SIMs to improve performance

 

In the end, nothing changed.

Edited June 2 by mthomas08

[SL_Thing]

2 minutes ago, mthomas08 said:

I do not miss SIMs.

 

Even when Bromcom goes down.. and when it does.. it really goes down.

 

I do not miss SIMs.

 

The hours.. days.. weeks.. I put in to trying to fix the memory crashes..  the slow performance..  oh god did I try everything.

 

I wont ever recommend Bromcom, partly due to the what seems like a lot of outages at mainly key times, and also some of the other past things if you look.

 

Arbor for me,  did the migration at my last school and it was a dream, things just worked, quickly, and you rarely hear of any downtime, ive only heard once in 4 years, and that was resolved very quickly.

 

I am hoping that the current fun is enough to make my current school think a bit more about moving.

[ozydave]

9 hours ago, stephen.loader said:

We are having the same issue with migrating to SQL2022 (from 2012, previous network managers to me had not done anything as my last school we did SQL2016 a long time ago).

 

Tried all the usual patches, and the advice on this page with MXDOP etc, still makes not much difference.

 

Takes 50ish minutes to run a backup, last night when we finished the update stats patch, it took nearly an hour to unlock the database.

 

I really wish i could convince the powers to move to Abor, it is much much better. arghhhhh

Sill experiencing the same issues as I was at the beginning. Done all the bits, index patches, shrink logs, archive attendance logs etc, basically everything parentpay say, MXDOP, reserving VM memory, just all sorts.

The SIMS services manager does really take its toll.

I'm at the end of my tether.

Defo looking to move away from SIMS

 

 

 

 

[SL_Thing]

12 hours ago, ozydave said:

Sill experiencing the same issues as I was at the beginning. Done all the bits, index patches, shrink logs, archive attendance logs etc, basically everything parentpay say, MXDOP, reserving VM memory, just all sorts.

The SIMS services manager does really take its toll.

I'm at the end of my tether.

Defo looking to move away from SIMS

 

 

 

 

Yep, done all that, seems the CU25 update for 2022 has helped to some degree, the db backup only took 21 minutes and not 50m.

 

At my last school it got so bad we had a meeting with Arbor, then put an  order in without looking at much else. Ours was so bad, similar sized db of 80gb  (50% is intouch, and SIMS answer to that is delete the communications after a certain date, but we need to keep them), and that was on SQL2016.

 

It is truly getting bad, and ESS know it, hence why they are now forcing next gen from mid June.

 

I have other stuff going on in my personal life which is giving me high bp and anxiety, I was fine most of last week till this didn't go to plan, now headaches etc.

 

I only experienced the setup of Arbor and a few weeks of using it, but that few months in total from start to finish was a breeze, and it just works, fast. Even SIMS Next gen takes time to load!!

 

Oh the joys.

 

Fingers crossed ESS get back to me today (they should be pay the posh support, not through choice, we weren't allowed to get rid of it as contract renewal without giving them enough notice, surprise surprise)

[BKGarry]

34 minutes ago, stephen.loader said:

At my last school it got so bad we had a meeting with Arbor, then put an  order in without looking at much else. Ours was so bad, similar sized db of 80gb  (50% is intouch, and SIMS answer to that is delete the communications after a certain date, but we need to keep them), and that was on SQL2016.

 

This I do not miss, as it also stored the attachment for each message in there too, not as a collective this, one for each message! Best thing we did for my wellbeing was moving away from Arbor, although we still have FMS, but that was put on it's own server and only on a handful of machines but I am hoping we move to a different finance platform next year.

I wonder how much more it is to put it into SIMS Connected/Hosted thing and make it their problem on resources etc?

[SL_Thing]

Just now, BKGarry said:

 

This I do not miss, as it also stored the attachment for each message in there too, not as a collective this, one for each message! Best thing we did for my wellbeing was moving away from Arbor, although we still have FMS, but that was put on it's own server and only on a handful of machines but I am hoping we move to a different finance platform next year.

I wonder how much more it is to put it into SIMS Connected/Hosted thing and make it their problem on resources etc?

I cant believe schools still used FMS, my last school ditched FMS years ago for Corero Res32000 (but must have changed now to Civica Finance, they did for HR.Payrol), we changed back then as they couldn't cope with academies.

 

We currently pay nearly 20k for SIMS and all its bits on prem (went up 2.5k this year), to chuck it to hosted I believe it is another 10k or so, and its just a VM in azure, cannot do trusted logons, and runs even slower due to the resources they dont give it.

 

If I won the lottery today, i'd buy Arbor myself.

 

We need to do a server refresh on our hyperv cluster by feb, we can offload most of it, but if we keep SIMS going, we will need the redundancy im comfortable with, the SSD storage I want, and enough ram to keep RDP allive for use outside of the school. If i dont have to do that, we can save a mega fortune,  especially at current pricing for hardware.

[BKGarry]

1 minute ago, stephen.loader said:

I cant believe schools still used FMS

We are still a Foundation School, so we are kinda dictated by the LEA Finance, but they are supporting two other finance packages from the September, so we may finally be able to move (and I want to before they try to force "New" FMS on us, because I don't think it is going to work as we don't have a working SIMS Installation to get SIMS Connected accounts.

[SL_Thing]

9 minutes ago, BKGarry said:

We are still a Foundation School, so we are kinda dictated by the LEA Finance, but they are supporting two other finance packages from the September, so we may finally be able to move (and I want to before they try to force "New" FMS on us, because I don't think it is going to work as we don't have a working SIMS Installation to get SIMS Connected accounts.

That's a shame, Arbor has a finance package too.

[Ratcliffepg]

The new FMS... Which is still the same as the on prem FMS... just force you to migrate it to sims connected ( Cloud )

[SL_Thing]

Just now, Ratcliffepg said:

The new FMS... Which is still the same as the on prem FMS... just force you to migrate it to sims connected ( Cloud )

Im assuming FMS still looks like the old 16bit commodore 64 looking program, no web portals for staff to raise PO's etc?

[Ratcliffepg]

Yep... should of been moving to the new FMS whatever that is called... then had a message saying this was being delayed now.... no date given as too when this will happen. 

 

I wonder how many support calls they get regarding performance issues... we have certainly logged plenty..... 

[KingDuncan]

@ozydave I have an absolute mare with our SIMS at the mo. I see that you have run queries against your SQL. I have been doing the same to try and find out what is consuming all the resources. I am trying to find someone who would be willing to run a SELECT SQL on their database to try and compare with another SIMS installation. There is a particular query that SSM runs and it runs for 20min! Would you be happy to run a simple SELECT query to see how long the SSM query runs on your installation?

 

This is a link to my initial post - https://www.edugeek.net/forums/topic/226570-sims-user-lock-issue/#comment-2028821

 

 

Many thanks if you can assist.

[Ratcliffepg]

Since Christmas we have.... Sims on a new VM which is on a new host.... upgrade to SQL 2022..... made no difference.... and yes.... we have deployed those performance patches many times....we are moving away at the end of his school year.

[SL_Thing]

Current update, they have tested our DB on there VTE system, surprise no performance issues (well it is probably stacked to the hilt with cpu and fast storage), the powerbi reports we run only take 1h20m for them as opposed to 3-5hrs, before SQL 2022 it was 1hr30m for us on the same server (yes the other SQL2012 service has been disabled)

 

Ive been through this with the same size db and SQL2016 5 years ago at my last school and nothing could be done, that was how SIMS is was the outcome.

 

Current thing ive been given to try is to detach the db and re-attach, cant see that helping.

[KingDuncan]

There might be another angle with regards to SIMS appearing slow.

 

We have had an issue going back to March, where on the surface it looks like SIMSv7 is going slow (staff get a spinning wheel after pressing save and have to wait ages), but the reality is that in the background  there are queries being run by SSM to synchronize SIMSv7 on prem with SIMS Next Gen, and when these queries run, they apply an exclusive lock on various tables in SIMSv7. So what users are actually experiencing is a lock not slow speed. In theory the queries being run by SSM should be quite quick with an incremental update, but I am of the opinion that each time the query runs it is doing a full sync. One of the queries runs for an hour, has a 3-5 minute breather and then goes again. While this query runs staff cannot enter their end of term Marksheets in SIMSv7!! I would be really interested to find out if anyone else has the same issue.

[TheLuckyTourist]

We're having exactly the same problem with Marksheets. We are having to restart the DeX service of SSM every hour during the day with a scheduled task restarting the SSM service during the evening just to allow teachers to enter their data. A patch is expected next week but after a number of remote sessions we are not optimistic.

[SIMS_Customer_Support]

Thanks for sharing your experiences. We recognise the impact performance issues can have on school staff, particularly when they affect day-to-day activities such as assessment and data entry.

 

As every school's environment is different, we'd welcome the opportunity to understand more about the specific challenges being discussed here. If you're experiencing ongoing issues, please send us a direct message so we can review your circumstances and ensure the right people are involved in investigating and supporting you.

 

Best regards, 

 

ParentPay Group
 

[sunny88]

Hi Any update on this. I have a school that CPU is at 90 percent. As soon as i stop SSM then CPU goes to 14 percent. 

ESS have advised to Stop DEX. But that will stop Next Gen sync. 

[SL_Thing]

4 minutes ago, sunny88 said:

Hi Any update on this. I have a school that CPU is at 90 percent. As soon as i stop SSM then CPU goes to 14 percent. 

ESS have advised to Stop DEX. But that will stop Next Gen sync. 

Not much, mine isnt SSM related, CPU is bouncing around at normalish levels.

 

They have now recommended (and done so) switching the compatibility mode to 2022 and then running which i will need to do the reindex and update stats.