Latency Issues with Win2K

[Javier Romero]

To whom it may concern,

I work in a hospitality environment. We use a program for
our sales group called Delphi (not related to Borland
product) that connnects via ODBC to a SQL Server running
Win2k Server. We had to upgrade a number of PCs to Win2k
and Delphi slowed down dramatically.

In some cases, PCs were upgraded from Celeron 700s (64
Megs Ram) running Win98. They were replaced by Dell P4 2.2
Ghz machines (256 Meg Ram) running Win2K. In all cases
Delphi ran slower on the newer P4s than on the clones
running Win98, even with the boost of processing speed and
memory. Some of the clone machines just had their OS
upgraded from Win98 to Win2K, no hardware upgrade, and
they all slowed down after being installed with Win2K.
This latency has occured at all 3 of the sites that run
this program. Each site has it own server.

All PCs are connect via TCP/IP over 10/100 switches. As
far as I can tell, all connections are at 100 MB. Funny
thing is, the Citrix Server we were running before still
fun at the previous speed. What is it about the Win2K
machines that make them different than the Win98 and
Citrix machines running on WinNT.

Any suggestions on what to look for? We do not use active
directory right now, and the primary network OS is
Novell. We do have WINS and DNS set up.

Thank You,

 

[Gino]

I think you have to do some investigation on this. There could be several
reasons for this or a combination of two or three things that together are
causing the performance hit. You or someone should look at doing test
connections and capturing packets and look for problems in authenication,
session, or protocol. Another thing is that there could have been some
compiled componets on the clients (the win98) that are now missing causing
extra round trips to the server. If you still have win98 clients left I
would capture a connection and update with them and then try with the
win2000.

 

[Chuck]

To whom it may concern,

I work in a hospitality environment. We use a program for
our sales group called Delphi (not related to Borland
product) that connnects via ODBC to a SQL Server running
Win2k Server. We had to upgrade a number of PCs to Win2k
and Delphi slowed down dramatically.

In some cases, PCs were upgraded from Celeron 700s (64
Megs Ram) running Win98. They were replaced by Dell P4 2.2
Ghz machines (256 Meg Ram) running Win2K. In all cases
Delphi ran slower on the newer P4s than on the clones
running Win98, even with the boost of processing speed and
memory. Some of the clone machines just had their OS
upgraded from Win98 to Win2K, no hardware upgrade, and
they all slowed down after being installed with Win2K.
This latency has occured at all 3 of the sites that run
this program. Each site has it own server.

All PCs are connect via TCP/IP over 10/100 switches. As
far as I can tell, all connections are at 100 MB. Funny
thing is, the Citrix Server we were running before still
fun at the previous speed. What is it about the Win2K
machines that make them different than the Win98 and
Citrix machines running on WinNT.

Any suggestions on what to look for? We do not use active
directory right now, and the primary network OS is
Novell. We do have WINS and DNS set up.

Javier,

Your experience sounds like it has numerous possible causes. Please
provide some more detail.

1) Does Delphi run slower only on the upgraded computers? Were the
non upgraded computers unaffected?

2) Are there any remaining non-upgraded computers?

3) You refer to "Delphi that connects via ODBC to a SQL Server
running Win2k Server", then later "primary network OS is Novell".
What network protocol are you running? How do the Novell servers
(natively running IPX/SPX) interact with Win9x / Win2K clients?

4) What are the network protocols on the Win9x computers? On the
Win2K computers? On the Novell servers?

4) Please expand upon the latency issue. Is it just Delphi that
slowed down? Please give an idea of how much. Did it slow down when
the Delphi client is started on the computers, when doing
transactions, both?

5) You refer to 3 sites. Are there equal numbers of clients
(upgraded / non upgraded) and servers at each site? Win2K and Novell
servers?

6) Does Delphi use Novell services also?.

7) Where does Citrix enter into the picture?

Cheers,

Chuck
I hate spam - PLEASE get rid of the spam before emailing me!
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Javier]

Chuck,

I will answer your questions as you numbered them.

1. Only the machines that were upgraded to Win2K were
affected. The machines that were still running Win98, ran
fine. Some of the Win98 machines were upgraded (via a
Ghost Image) to Win2k and those same PCs that ran fine
before were now slow. So all the PCs that run Win2K run
this Delphi program slow.

2. There are no machines running Win98 any longer. The
upgrade was necesarry to run the software that manages the
Hotels, so all the PCs were upgraded.

3. We run a hybrid network of Novell & Windows. Novell is
for File & Print, Windows Servers are application
servers. We ran both IPX/SPX 802.3, and TCP/IP. At the
location I am now, I recently removed the 802.3 protocol
since the application that needed it had been retired. At
this time, the only protocol running here is TCP/IP on
both the Novell server and Windows Servers. I have not
removed the IPX/SPX protocol from the Workstations just
yet. I do plan to soon though.

4. The Win9X machines ran both the IPX/SPX 802.3 protocol
and the TCP/IP protocol. That configuration was also used
on the Win 2K machines. The Novell Server is only running
TCP/IP at this time.

4. Delphi is the only program that displays the latency as
far as I can tell. There is not any other program running
here at would really indicate latency. The only other
programs that run are Groupwise for email, and the
Property Management Systems that is a browser based
program. They seem OK. The latency displays itself when
in the program. The program is used for scheduling,
contact management, billing etc. When every a new client
is selected for instance, it would take anywhere from 4 to
10 seconds for the data to appear on the screen. The
Database fields would appear, but it would take a while
for the data to appear. This was almost instantaneous on
the Win9X PCs.

5. The site I am now has the smallest number of clients.
There are less then 10 people using this program as this
site, and at the biggest site, maybe 30 users at any given
time. Again, all the PCs have now been upgraded to 2K.

6. Delphi does not use any services from Novell. In fact,
the data and files (word docs and such) are actually
stored on the Windows Server, and not on the Novell
Server. You could actually just connect to the Delphi
program and not need Novell if you wanted.

7. Delphi runs at each site (each a separate Hotel) and
are separate SQL databases. There is no replication or
data synchronization between any of the serves at each
site. Therefore, if a Salesperson needed to check any
information about a hotel at another site, they do so
through Citrix. This is because making a SQL connection
over the T1 Wan link would be extremely slow. They run
their Citrix session, log into the remote Citrix server
local to the Delphi Server they want to access, and do
their work. The Citrix Servers run just fine. They have
managed keep running as the speed before the uggrade.

Thank You,