Slow SIMS.net

[tobyhacker]

Hello all,

 

We've been having a few issues here with our SQL Server which our SIMS sits on. Sims has recently been slowing right down so to log on can take up to 10 - 15 mins and in some instances time out.

 

It seems that the sqlservr.exe process on the server is being hit pretty hard with the CPU usage at around 25% and the Mem Usage being over 1.13GB. The times when this is happening seems random it's not only when 60 odd teachers are logging on to do their lesson registers, it can be when only a handful of people are using SIMS.

 

This only seems to have been happening since we did our March update via SOLUS.

 

Has anyone else been experiencing these or similar problems? Also, does anyone have any ideas on how to resolve this? I'm still waiting to hear back from our LEA support team...

 

Many thanks!

 

Toby

[6Foot2]

If the problem is only occurring at logon you could use this batch file to skip the checking for updates stage of the logon. I don’t recommend this, but it may help.

 

Batch file:

 

net use s: /d

net use s: \\simsservername.domainname.local\simsroot$

C:

CD\Program Files\SIMS\SIMS .net\

SIMSLoad.exe

Pulsar.exe

 

Batch file ends.

 

This assumes:

 

You are using S:\ as your SIMS drive

Your copy of Windows is installed on C: and/or your SIMS on your hard disk is in C:\Program Files\SIMS

Your stations where you will be running this have already been updated since the last SIMS upgrade using SOLUS.

 

Note: ‘simsservername.domainname.local’ represents the fully qualified domain name of your SIMS server. Change the batch file to suit your school.

[the.damon]

I wouldn't have thought that would be the cause Dave as it wouldnt increase cpu/memory use.

 

What size is the DB and Log toby? It might be worth backing up and trying to shrink the db.

[tobyhacker]

I do regular backups to shrink the DB so I can't see it being this (I clean up old backups regularly) After rebooting the SQL service the mem usage has been continually climbing upwards and is now up to 439MB at present.

 

DB is just under 1GB with the log nothing to write home about.

 

Still waiting to hear back from our LEA...

[pete]

As a comparison my sql process is using 1.4 Gb of ram. This is normal and performs fine.

 

Ideally, the SQL server should cache as much of the database as possible in ram.

[tobyhacker]

Hmm... thanks for the info Pete. When I spoke to our SIMS support team about this they did seem surprised about the size.

 

Maybe something else is causing everything to slow up then?

 

The hunt continues!

[6Foot2]

...The hunt continues!

 

Would Process Explorer help you find it?

 

Link: Process Explorer

[Butuz]

What Specification is your SIMS server?

 

Andrew

[pete]

Have you got a spare decent-spec workstation or space and enough grunt on your workstation to install vmware?

 

Install SIMS on that, restore a pre-upgrade sims directory / database and then run the upgrade again.

 

If nothing else it'll give you a similarly broken SIMS server that you can poke and prod without worrying about live data / users.

[DMcCoy]

Now up to 1.98 GB database. I'm glad I switched to the full sql 2000 from msde a few years back now.

[apeo]

Upgrading our sims server to ms sql 2005 from ms sql 2000 here. What is actually taking up cpu and memory? Do the clients actually hit the server when trying to log on or do they not get any further then their on compy... network problems?

[the.damon]

good point. Whats the login time like if you use the client on the sims server? If you can test that when other users are experiencing slow logins then perhaps you can rule out whether it's a network issue.

[tobyhacker]

When trying to log onto SIMS on the server itself when others are having issues can also take up to 5 mins or so. So I don't believe it to be a network issue.

 

Our SIMS helpdesk has informed me that Capita say it is an SQL issue and that it maybe resolved when we move to SQL 2005 in August. Up till then we've got to manage, they gave a few suggestions which I've got to try.

 

Server Spec is Xeon's with 4GB RAM lots of HDD etc etc. So in theory should be more than a match for SIMS!

 

Things seem to have settled down today with no reports of problems with SIMS hanging or being slow to log on, so we shall continue to monitor it and see what happens!

 

Many thanks for all your ideas!

 

Toby

[apeo]

The usual capita answer, the fix is in the next upgrade... well in this case its it will be working for sql 2005. Whats the bet it will fix some problems but other will crop up or even revive an old one....

[PhilNeal]

I suspect that the problem is the anti-virus software. There is a paper on this on our SupportNet site.

[the.damon]

One thing to add to phils post above is that imo you should never use that MS antispyware app. The one that has a red and yellow target icon. It runs havoc with sims load times and is detrimental to pretty much any application.

[john]

That program expired months ago, its called Windows Defender now and has a Castle logo

[the.damon]

That program expired months ago, its called Windows Defender now and has a Castle logo

 

That doesnt mean it's not on school machines though.

 

[tobyhacker]

Nope not on our machines! Installed on one played around with it and uninstalled all in one day. Microsoft are almost as bad as Sims... or should that be the other way round?!

[Butuz]

Our SIMS helpdesk has informed me that Capita say it is an SQL issue and that it maybe resolved when we move to SQL 2005 in August. Up till then we've got to manage, they gave a few suggestions which I've got to try.

 

Server Spec is Xeon's with 4GB RAM lots of HDD etc etc. So in theory should be more than a match for SIMS!

 

Strange because we're running a much weaker server than you and performance seems to be very good with aprox 100 users (we use for registration etc)

 

I have found that the network infrastructure makes a massive difference to SIMS - are you running Gigabit to the SIMS server and a fully switched network?

 

The fact that its semi intermittent indicates maybe your having network problems - broadcast storms or something.

 

Andrew

[the.damon]

Nope not on our machines! Installed on one played around with it and uninstalled all in one day. Microsoft are almost as bad as Sims... or should that be the other way round?!

 

I wish our schools did the same! I saw another instance of that app only this morning. Just to clarify, I assume the delay is after you have entered your user/pass and pressed ok? I'm sure it will be but thought it best to ask incase it was an issue with simsload.exe

 

 

Butuz: You may have a point there but would this still cause the servers sims client to login slowly? I'd probably say that it wouldn't but stranger things have happened. There's no harm in examining the network traffic to see if there are peaks at the time of login issues.

[Cipher]

Hi.. This is my first posting on the site!

 

I have had nothing to do with Sims on our admin network, but I was asked yesterday by a engineer form capita to why it was running slow... i thought that he might be needing to answer the question rather than me as he works for Captia???

 

I had a thought that the anti virus package could be affecting the performance. I spotted an earlier post in this thread but i cant find the paper that was referred to... can anyone give me some pointers on any tweaks to antivirus software for sims.net? We are using Sophos AV, EM Ver3 and EL Ver1.3.2, on access scanning on the server is disabled and on access scanning is turned on for the client PC’s with the scan on read setting. I don’t think the on access scanning applies to mapped network drives but I could be wrong.

[PhilNeal]

Cipher - go to our SupportNet site and on the left hand side there are sticky items. One of these talks about optimising start up speeds.