How to improve Network speed

[Stephen Williams]

I am doing more work over a network as my business expands, and I have a desktop and a pentium laptop I networked with fast ethernet cards.

I find my app runs a LOT slower using a 4.0 runtime from the networked laptop computer than on the main (server) computer. I also have a copy on the laptop computer, and if I run it locally with the runtime it is not THAT much slower than main computer which runs 4.5.

I WAS thinking it was the improved indexing of 4.5 that made the difference, but the truth is there is quite a dramatic drop in speed, and as I say, if I copy the app and run it locally the speed difference is there, but not that great.

Yes - I have shadowed.

Question - I don't have tons of money to burn right now. Should I simply get the 4.5 runtime upgrade, or get a faster pentium desktop? Which would give the better speed improvement?

[Mick Magnuson]

RE: How to improve Network speed

Hi Steve
Every once in awhile I get a runtime machine that will slow to a crawl. Loads slow, switches forms slow, etc. I will go in Explorer and totally erase the A5v4_runtime directory, all files, all folders. Then reinstall the A5Runtime, and re-optimize from the server. Usually speeds it back up. Worth a shot.

Mick

[Bill Warner]

RE: How to improve Network speed

If I understand correctly, you say the difference in speed when running either machine locally is small, but when the laptop is running across the network, there's a big difference. And you have also network optimized, right?

If this is the case, I suspect a network problem. I've set up many network apps, and with network optimization, the difference in speed between running locally or running optimized is small. In other words, running optimized works great. So, maybe something in your network setup is not configured correctly.

However, I HAVEN'T set up an optimized network with two different versions. It's possible that's causing the problem, although I wouldn't know why.

[Peter.Greulich]

RE: How to improve Network speed

Stephen,
I don't think this solves anything for you. But FWIW: regarding speed in general, On a network, Alpha crawls w/o optimization, even on a fast machine (e.g. P-933). With optimization Alpha flies. At home I have a P-1.3 Ghz machine, Alpha runs on the single machine very fast. At work, my P-933 is optimized, the server is a P-700. I see virtually no speed difference between the network and the home PCs running Alpha. The network is peer-to-peer with about a dozen machines.
Peter

[JohnZaleski]

RE: How to improve Network speed

Stephen,
I don't think it's a very good idea ( understatement ) to run different versions of Alpha, irregardless of speed diferences. You may be using some unsupported features on a form or elsewhere that the 4.0 runtime doesn't know how to handle. Any indexing problems that were present on older Alpha versions could crop up. I know that 4.5 had some changes in record locking behavior when changing records that could cause unreliable behavior. So I would get the upgrade to the runtime first, and if the speed differences still exist, attack them later.
John

[Stephen Williams]

RE: How to improve Network speed

This is my worry. It does not seem very smart to have 4.5 with it's improved index handling futzing files at the same time as 4.0. It works, I am sure, as index locking stops the train smash (haven't had any...). I have reorganized my business (got an office manager) so now we need two computers quite frequently. Unfortunately the business season for landscaping is early (ie slow cash flow) while my office manager adds to the overhead. We will work it out. I have another woman come in and work on sales proposals also and she gets quite frustrated at the slowness. Me? I just make a copy and run it as a local app with the runtime and there is very little speed problem. But then when I sell a job the data has to be entered all over again... and the new office manager is left wondering what the hell is going on.