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RMS System Speed Improvement

We have been running RMS Store Operations since Feb 2004. We now have more than 100,000 sales transactions, 4500 purchase orders, 10,000 customers and

9000 inventory items. (We're on 1.20161, as we are a single store, and there seemed to be little advantage to the 1.3 upgrade for single location users who do not run HQ.)

We run 2 POS on two lanes. One acts as the server where the database resides. We are running the SQL Server tha comes with Windows XP. We also run Store operations on 3 or 4 other stations. Most stations have 512 MB of RAM including the "Server."

Users have complained the system slows down under certain conditions. For instance, the first credit card transactions of the day are always slow to authorize. Looking up a receipt in the journal can take more than a minute. On the other hand, product and customer lookups are fast.

We have considered several ideas to speed up performance. I am interested in your collective wisdom as to which of these actions might actually improve performance.

- Add RAM to the server

- Install the database on a dedicated server

- Archive transactions more than 13 months old

- Upgrade our Linksys router to something more industrial

Any thoughts?

Reply to
BruceKap
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In a past life, I used to sell network hardware - mostly Compaq servers and Cisco LAN/WAN hardware.

The cheapest solution (and biggest performance improvement) would probably come from archiving old transactions.

A dedicated server would be better (and a lot more expensive) than RAM upgrades (which would help, but not nearly so much as a dedicated server).

The Linksys router is not a likely bottleneck. Buying a new switch with higher thoughput or even gigabit ethernet is unlikely to make a tremendous difference on such a small LAN.

The combination of a dedicated server and some archiving (say over 25 months or so) would probably be awesome.

Tom

Reply to
Terrible Tom

We have been running RMS Store Operations since Feb 2004. We now have more than 100,000 sales transactions, 4500 purchase orders, 10,000 customers and 9000 inventory items. (We're on 1.20161, as we are a single store, and there seemed to be little advantage to the 1.3 upgrade for single location users who do not run HQ.)

We run 2 POS on two lanes. One acts as the server where the database resides. We are running the SQL Server tha comes with Windows XP. We also run Store operations on 3 or 4 other stations. Most stations have 512 MB of RAM including the "Server."

Users have complained the system slows down under certain conditions. For instance, the first credit card transactions of the day are always slow to authorize. Looking up a receipt in the journal can take more than a minute. On the other hand, product and customer lookups are fast.

We have considered several ideas to speed up performance. I am interested in your collective wisdom as to which of these actions might actually improve performance.

- Add RAM to the server - Install the database on a dedicated server - Archive transactions more than 13 months old - Upgrade our Linksys router to something more industrial

Any thoughts?

Reply to
Jeff

other post ;-)

I didn't realise this was possible. It makes sense, does it make much difference?

Cheers

Reply to
jetspeed

You can defrag the database, and defrag the actual drive the database lives on. Besides that, is your server a server? Hard disk performance is something that PC type servers don't have. Even running RAID in a striped configuration can help...but you could buy a scsi disk and scsi controller and put your database on that.

We had > We have been running RMS Store Operations since Feb 2004. We now have more

Reply to
ozzie

Hi, I can recommend you use Reindexing at SO administrator>Database>Reindex. This may help your problem. Microsoft said at the RMS documentation, if you are encountering any slow database you can use reindex tool built at SO admin.

hope that these suggestion may help your daily transaction.

Regards, Dexter

"ozzie" wrote:

Reply to
Online issue

I didn't realise this was possible. It makes sense, does it make much difference?

Cheers

Reply to
Jeff

omg are you kidding ? you must be making money with that many customers, you need a server and small, well set up LAN now, stop using XP as a server it is already slowing you down 100 %. you suffer under being totally and utterly underpowered.

this is just to get NT/XPW2K running as fast as possible.

-you have too many stations to NOT have a server. you would benefit from centralizing all SQL processing so your data will pop open right away. RIGHT AWAY. NIGHT AND DAY. i am so upset reading this.

you cant avoid this situation you describe until you put RMS onto a real server and make a small well set up LAN. the ROI will appear in the 1st week - you will be happy and the data will be quick. RMS/SQL work well in this respect.

-many of these things are maintenance and should not be done during the business day but when all users can be logged out of RMS.

Do this to ALL PCs you are using & ignore stuff if it doesnt apply to each PC.

-Clean out junk files, temp files, cookies, ALL THAT JUNK. if you dont know get someone who does and pay them.

-uninstall any unused and home typesoftware like "Photo something-or-other" or Jassc Paint Shop Pro etc etc. close all apps and defrag the Windows OS you're running(XP).

-runa Check Disk in Windows and reboot

-Reindex database when no users are in.

-If no errors;

-dedicate that XP /SQL box to only RMS & antivirus anything else & you kid yourself.

-you need 25% free disk space on all drives at all times. period.

-you MUST adjust the page file to be tuned to how much disk space you have.

-

"BruceKap" wrote:

Reply to
luke

and backup your data. backup the dat or database to a USB hard drive, burn it , get a portable hard drive device and BACKUP your AWESOME data. PLEASE BACKUP TOMORROW. for me ok? all kinds of data & nuthin to run it on and you're at 5 or 6 stations cmon lad! up the irons!

g'luck

"BruceKap" wrote:

Reply to
luke

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