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Hello All-
Made some interesting discoveries regarding the problem that I had brought
to the group-- and have arrived at a very unique fix in which
other developers might be interested.
My thanks to all who provided input.
My situation was that 2 computers connected via a 100 mbps modem were
functioning slowly in the R-Base environment (6.5+). The database and
programming resided on one machine, with programming only, on the other.
Most of my programming exists as command files-- probably 200-300 of
them. Lots of forms, reports, and the like are also employed. The
database is utilized for mega-tons of data crunching, and incorporates many many
update, declare, and table building scenarios in an engineering
environment. R-Base is truly a wonderful product in that it will do almost
anything that your imagination can think of-- and we run it to the hilt!
In a nutshell, we found out that in a small environment, Microsoft Small
Business Server, or Novell Enterprise Server (DOS 16 bit environment) do
not offer any increase in speed or performance of a complex database with lots
of data manipulation. Monitoring of network and CPU usage in the
Windows Task Manager with both systems indicated that resources were nowhere
near maxed out. Either server scenario only added overhead and
lots of stuff that did not enhance performance or data crunching capabilities at
all. We went back to the 100 mbps modem.
In playing with R-Base and incorporating many of the ideas that were
submitted by the user group, I noticed that I could have multiple
sessions of the program and database running on my base machine, within the
multi-user environment. Multiple sessions operated very quickly
on this ASUS 64 bit, 2.2 gighz unit, with 2 gigs of RAM.
In pursuit of this new knowledge, we tried PC Anywhere by Symantec.
Although it allowed fast access by machine #2 to machine #1, machine
#1 could not access the database at all (it took over machine #1).
Further research yielded a company named Thin Soft (thinsoftinc.com).
They make a product called "Winconnect Server XP". Simple to load and use
(it took 15 minutes from load to operation), and $300 for 3 licenses
(users). Now we the run the program and database on machine #1,
machine #2 runs the programs also on machine #1, but only the GUI interface is
shown on machine #2-- woohoo! All crunching remains on machine #1.
The user on machine #1 does not lose control of his normal desktop, nor is he
even aware that machine #2 is in full operation within the database. He
manipulates the database as normal.
Both machines are now lightening fast. Network usage remains very low
(less than 10% of the 100 mbps), although CPU usage on machine#1 is above 2
gigs. Not to worry-- this is easy solved with the simple addition of
memory to make it run even faster, eliminating much use of the swap file.
Problem solved--
Again, my thanks to all who contributed!
Thought you would like to know.
Have a great weekend!
Lee
Bailey & Associates
E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: 772-597-0040 Fax: 772-597-0043 Web Site: www.BaileyUS.com |
