Improving 8.12 webclient response times

Shrikanthn

Well Known Member
Hi List

As users of JDE 8.0 webclient (websphere, windows OS) we are used to a certain speed of response. when the user clicks on a customised menu it opens the menu INSTANTLY. when user clicks on the application it does display "launching application" but it opens the application within ONE second.

We are now upgrading to JDE 8.12 webclient (OAS, windows OS), 8.97 tools release, Unicode Oracle DB with more powerful new hardware. Despite our best efforts to tune this new system, the best times we have achieved are
Click on custom menu - The first time i click on it in the current session it takes upto 8 secs to open. on subsequent clicks it reduces to one second. But if i log out and log back in this happens again.

The applications are a little more erratic. Generally they take about 2 seconds to come up, but if i open and close the same application 10 times, 6 out of 10 times it opens within 2 secs but 4 out of 10 times takes upto 10 secs. Shows up that first "opening application" message then the second "opening application" message and finally opens the applications.

Even a simple visual assist can take up to 10 secs to open. but most times it is faster.

I am aware of the new 8.12 run-time generation feature. But since these are menus and applications we have been accessing over days of testing, they should have been long generated and cached. Hence that should not be the source of the slowness in response.

I realise that performance tuning is not something that can be conveyed through a simple post on this forum. Just wanted to know if there were some common gotchas that you have seen in other 8.12 installations that can make the speed atleast compare with 8.0 webclient.

best regards
shrikanth
 
Hi,

These are some things you may want to try:

1. Re-index tables affected.
2. Update database statistics.
3. Use IE tweak to use 10 concurrent connections rather than the default 2 connections.
4. Check OAS web cache, try to enable it -works great for us.
5. Use the jasserver logs to check for issues.
6. Check for conficker/downup/kido worm -these are nasty!.

I guess that's it...

Good luck to you!
 
How many types of JAS servers you have per environment? You should have only one type OAS or WebSphere. Otherwise the specs will be generated all the time to reflect the corresponding type. You wil have similar issue if you use different versions of OAS or WebSphere like v.6.0 and v6.1.
 
Just to give you a comparison - we're in the process of upgrading to 9.0 / 8.98, and our response times so far are very similiar to your XE times.
In other words - I don't think its the software (other than a patch needed possibly). Sounds like there is a configuration problem.
 
hi all, thanks for your valuable feedback. Kentoy we went through your checklist one by one and confirmed that we have done almost all of them except the OAS web cache which my CNC consultant informed me that OAS 10.1.3.1 which we are using does not have this feature....

We have added the IE tweak as well.

the other thing we are thinking of doing is to Defragment the servers. We hope this can only help improve performance. I assume nobody has experienced this as hurting performance....

A new issue related to performance has raised its head and that is the power of the client PC. We do not as a rule have PCs which exceed 512 MB RAM and 2Ghz. But we found working on one exceptional PC that JDE was significantly smoother and faster. It had 3.4 GHz with 1GB RAM installed. So now again we are back to wondering whether this webclient is really thin enough!! The MTR info from Oracle does not give any definite benchmark on this... any experiences to share will be appreciated

best regards
shrikanth
 
The term "thin" comes from the marketing people, it is certainly a lie, it is not at all thin. I've been posting about this many times before. It uses more network than Citrix and uses a lot of CPU and RAM as well...
 
[ QUOTE ]
we have done almost all of them except the OAS web cache which my CNC consultant informed me that OAS 10.1.3.1 which we are using does not have this feature....

[/ QUOTE ]

The Web Cache feature is not bundled with the OAS 10.1.3.1 installation package. You'll need to run the 10g R2 (10.2) installation and select to only install the Web Cache feature. You can then use this in conjuction with your 10.1.3.1 install. This setup is documented in the Web Server installation guide for the Tools Release you're going to.

[ QUOTE ]
A new issue related to performance has raised its head and that is the power of the client PC. We do not as a rule have PCs which exceed 512 MB RAM and 2Ghz. But we found working on one exceptional PC that JDE was significantly smoother and faster. It had 3.4 GHz with 1GB RAM installed. So now again we are back to wondering whether this webclient is really thin enough!!

[/ QUOTE ]

The client PC specs play a major role in determining the performance of the web client. You may want to try running IE for JDE through a Citrix box for a handfull of people and benchmark the performance that way and do some comparisons.
 
Shrikanth,

Client PCs with <= 512M RAM . . . I know you probably don't control your organization's budgets . . . but those are minimum configuration clients, and we all know how fast minimum configuration clients run.
There has been a number of posts here regarding web performance and client PC configuration. Oracle themselves state that you need to beef up your clients to get good performance.

From Oracle's MTR document:
-----------------------------------------
Web Client
------------
. . .
One of the primary factors that effects the performance of the Web client is the number of cells to be rendered in the grid within interactive applications. If unsatisfactory performance is experienced while rendering the grid, performance of the Web client can usually be improved by:

Reducing the number of columns in the grid by using custom views
Increasing the RAM on the Web client
Increasing the CPU on the Web client
 
Minimally accepted client configuration these days consists of 2Gb of memory - unless, of course, you're running a non-microsoft OS !

512Mb of memory is a little ludicrous - 2Gb costs companies less than $100 these days. Surely your workers are worth $100 each ?!
 
It actually starts feeling reasonable, once you try it on an i7 overclocked to 4GHz with 6GB of DDR3-2000 RAM, using XP64/IE64 ;-)
 
Thanks all for suggestions. The performance has improved after we went through all the recommended steps. It was a good learning experience. thanks again. We basically reindexed the serialised objects tables and pre-populated the data by working on the system for a few days before giving it to the users to test....

also we shall try and upgrade PCs when budgets get released. in this climate i guess $100/user is still considered a non-critical expense. I guess when we are pushed by Microsoft to move to Office 2007 etc we shall do this transition slowly. Till then i shall continue to live in the hope that JDE continues to work towards a truly thin thin-client.

best regards
shrikanth
 
[ QUOTE ]
...Till then i shall continue to live in the hope that JDE continues to work towards a truly thin thin-client....

[/ QUOTE ]

They did. It was the Xe fat client running under Citrix....

Actually, a truly "thin" client is the mobile web platform. Certainly less functionality, but a LOT more efficient over a network.

Personally, I just hope that JDE continues to move away from Microsoft technologies like ActiveX, especially since Oracle owns Java now !
 
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
...Till then i shall continue to live in the hope that JDE continues to work towards a truly thin thin-client....

[/ QUOTE ]

They did. It was the Xe fat client running under Citrix....

Actually, a truly "thin" client is the mobile web platform. Certainly less functionality, but a LOT more efficient over a network.

Personally, I just hope that JDE continues to move away from Microsoft technologies like ActiveX, especially since Oracle owns Java now !

[/ QUOTE ]

Jon, I understand your personal history with the Citrix client but I could never quite get how you can rationalize your preference for open source models with your support for a Microsoft-based client delivered over a closed, proprietary piece of presentation software.

Just sayin'
 
[ QUOTE ]

Jon, I understand your personal history with the Citrix client but I could never quite get how you can rationalize your preference for open source models with your support for a Microsoft-based client delivered over a closed, proprietary piece of presentation software.

Just sayin'

[/ QUOTE ]

Thats because VNC failed so miserably !

Actually, I prefer a WORKING solution - the right tool for the job. I wish JAS was as efficient as Citrix over high-latency low-bandwidth WAN connections - but there have been too many lazy developers at JDE that don't test and provide no quality assurance at all. Certainly, JAS IS getting better - all the time - and its possible to tune to make it almost "fly" - but the biggest issue now is the client configuration requirements as well as management of the client. JDE has been recently proposing that large E1 9.0 customers mitigate these issues by using Citrix, which is a horrible costly band-aid (but something that does work).
 
A point made earlier is relevant. Post the 8.12 upgrade we went through a huge excercise to put custom grid formats over pretty much everything. These only displayed relevant columns and made a pretty big difference.
 
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