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SBS Interface Performance Issues


adamt

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Hi,

 

I've recently installed version SBS Premium 7.7.620 on the SBS 2003 server and the interface is woefully slow. The application itself can take 20-30 minutes to load fully and become responsive and each mouse click on a button takes around a minute to respond. I've tried reinstalling and it seems that as soon as I activate the exchange plugin or the sql server plugin the application slows to a crawl (it seems fine when they are not activated but I need sql server and exchange to be backed up).

 

One unusual point about my setup is that the SQL Server and Exchange Server files are hosted on a drive that's connected via iSCSI to a SAN back end, so I'm wondering if it's anything to do with that. The SAN is using the open-e.com distribution and is connected over a gigabit connection.

 

I've tried opening the application and running the sysinternals program performance monitor but not spotted anything conclusive. One reference that keeps appearing in the performance monitor output is a reference to an SQL Server registry key that doesn't exist but I don't know if that means anything (HKLM\software\microsoft\microsoft sql server\80\tools\sqldmo).

 

I'm not getting any error messages as such, although the interface does occassionally crash when loading, however I think that's a symptom rather than a cause.

 

Has anyone come across anything similar or can suggest some troubleshooting next steps?

 

Many thanks

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I'm not sure this helps or not, but we had slowness with SBS 2011. I noticed with Retrospect 7.7 and Exchange 2010 there is an Exchange Cmd-Let error in the System log every 15 seconds only when the interface is running in the console session. It is accompanied by a pause in the interface for a few seconds where it doesn't seem to be doing anything except waiting. Depending on your hardware this can vary in duration. We also noticed in SBS 2011 that Retrospect would consume more and more RAM over time until other services on the server would crash for lack of available RAM. Since you are on 2003 none of this may apply, but it is worth noting that Retrospect 7.7 has definite interface performance issues with SBS and Exchange.

 

One thing I have noticed is that version 8 no longer has the pause in the interface and no longer consumes RAM uncontrollably for SBS 2011. The error still appears in the logs every 15 seconds, but we can live with that for now. So, as far as interface responsiveness and performance for us, Retrospect 8 is much better. We are not using the SQL Add-In. So, the situation may be different for that. Perhaps you could try the Retrospect 8 trial to see if the performance of the interface improves for you or not. I'd recommend backing up your 7.7 catalog and config files first to make it easier to roll back if you decide not to purchase 8.0.

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Hi Ken,

 

Thanks for your input. I've had a look in the event viewer but I'm not seeing any errors logged in the system log. I think you are reinforcing my thoughts that it's something to do with the SAN though. If memory serves, the last re-install I did I activated the licence key for exchange (but not sql server) and the interface was fine immediately afterwards but once I'd closed the application and re-opened it a few days later the slowness kicked in.

 

I'll give the version 8 a go as well, although I only bought this upgrade in September so justifying the extra cost might be an issue.

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  • 1 month later...

Hi Robin, thanks for the update - I actually installed the beta a few hours ago.

 

My initial experience with the new build is that it has much better interface performance, but not completely resolved. Opening the application and actually being able to click anything has reduced from around 30 minutes to 2 minutes and time before being able to click between individual elements is down from 2 minutes to around 15 seconds.

 

I've not performed a backup yet but there is one scheduled for tonight so I'll see how that has got on in the morning.

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