CorporateGuardian Performance

[MkII]

Our LEA has just purchased SchoolsGuardian and we're having incredible performance problems. This is since it was installed in mid-January - a real pain.

 

Just wondering if this sounds right?

 

They're running it on a dual 3ghz machine with 2/4gb ram (sorry, i'll get some more accurate figures) for the whole LEA - 13 High schools average 800 kids on role I would think (Highest 950, lowest 300 ish) and 70 odd small primary schools.

 

Originally it was installed on a lower spec server.

[CyberNerd]

Smoothwall have a hardware specification calculator:

http://www.smoothwall.net/cgi-bin/i5specificationcalc

 

how many concurrent computers?

[MkII]

I think 2000 is the estimated figure CyberNerd

 

A multi processor, multi-core CPU or cluster is recommended. In this particular software configuration you require 2 processors or servers in your cluster with the following minimum specification:

 

 

Hardware Guideline Result:

CPU Speed: 2.6 Ghz

Memory (RAM) Size: 1024 Mb

Hard Disk Size: 21 Gb

 

the LEA were saying that the software didn't seem to be utilising the second CPU - and there was no way to configure it to.

[MkII]

Ah - it's actually Corporate Guardian v5 we're running on a dual core, dual 3.4Ghz CPU server

 

 

A multi processor, multi-core CPU or cluster is recommended. In this particular software configuration you require 2 processors or servers in your cluster with the following minimum specification:

 

 

Hardware Guideline Result:

CPU Speed: 2.7 Ghz

Memory (RAM) Size: 1024 Mb

Hard Disk Size: 21 Gb

[CyberNerd]

Smoothwall will almost certainly install a multiprocessor kernel by default, but you/they should be able to check with 'uname -a' on the command line (in tools>shell), anything with SMP is good. you can monitor the load using the command 'top'. Look for signs of a high load average, high swap usage etc. (IIRC there is a very basic load screen in the interface) other than that probably start looking at network problems - try pinging the server with 'ping -f' from a linux box - but get permission first! and look for any dropped packets - just small amount of dropped packets cause a major slowdown in network performance.

[MkII]

K thanks CN - i'll pass that on. I think the WAN connection is pretty solid - so I don't suspect thet.

[Geoff]

also with top and multiprocessor systems. If you hit the '1' key you'll be given a per cpu readout instead of aggregated stats:

 

So this:

top - 08:49:14 up 13 days, 23:01,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.08
Tasks:  73 total,   2 running,  71 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s):  0.0% us,  0.0% sy,  0.0% ni, 100.0% id,  0.0% wa,  0.0% hi,  0.0% si
Mem:   3092072k total,  2719368k used,   372704k free,    87164k buffers
Swap:  3196892k total,    20696k used,  3176196k free,  2057780k cached

 

vs this:

top - 08:50:06 up 13 days, 23:02,  1 user,  load average: 0.08, 0.02, 0.08
Tasks:  82 total,   2 running,  80 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu0  :  2.0% us,  0.7% sy,  0.0% ni, 97.3% id,  0.0% wa,  0.0% hi,  0.0% si
Cpu1  :  1.3% us,  0.7% sy,  0.0% ni, 98.0% id,  0.0% wa,  0.0% hi,  0.0% si
Mem:   3092072k total,  2759964k used,   332108k free,    87212k buffers
Swap:  3196892k total,    20696k used,  3176196k free,  2057732k cached

[MkII]

Thanks Geoff