Performance in the network

If you think that any performance issues you are experiencing are not caused by your Vertec configuration – see the Performance article – it could also be caused by a network problem. The following information should help you track down the problem.

Factors influencing network and server performance are:

• Server utilization
• Network bandwidth
• Latency

Does your server meet the requirements?

Performance on the server can be affected by services, firewalls, virus scanners, etc. Network problems are usually complex. To get to the bottom of such problems, you need a network specialist who can use tools such as the network analysis program WireShark to figure out what is causing the problems.

Experience shows that Vertec does not perform well enough on a small business server. The problem is not the small business server, but the Exchange server (supplied with it), which takes up almost all of the disk space and uses up the CPU. The size of the disk space does not play a role. Vertec should therefore not be installed on the same server as an Exchange server.

• For installations up to 50-100 users Firebird is the best choice, as it is very efficient and very easy to administer, e.g. backup. Vertec comes standard with Firebird.
• From 100 users or with special performance requirements, the use of a Microsoft SQL server can be considered. This scales very well with a large number of simultaneous users and transactions.

See the article Database support – firebird or ms sql server .

A higher quantity of CPU’s already brings a big performance improvement for large installations. A further improvement can be achieved by the fixed allocation of resources (dedicated). For comparison, the following table with performance values:

• For many users and large databases, the resources of the Microsoft SQL server are decisive! If it does not run optimally, optimizations in Vertec will also reach their limits.
• A VM with shared resources is inferior in performance to a VM with dedicated resources. For a productive system like Vertec, the VM should work with many users and large databases with fixed resources.

The database servers need index statistics to find out which index should be used in which order. For example, for a “male/female” field there are exactly 2 options, for an index on a postal code many more. With the index statistics, a query analyzer can determine which index to use first and which index to use second, etc. This is performance relevant.

If index statistics are not up-to-date, it may happen that the indexes are used, but not in the correct order.

For detailed information on this topic, see Database performance and index statistics .

When processing the business logic, Vertec makes many individual accesses. In the case of the desktop app, the business logic runs locally, in the case of cloud clients (cloud app and web app) on the server side. Depending on where this logic runs, different performance criteria are decisive:

Here, the cloud server applies the “local” role. Therefore, it is best for performance if the cloud server is as close as possible to the database server, with low latency and high bandwidth.

The cloud clients – Vertec Cloud App and Vertec Web App – are only sent the results over the network, which takes little time, so the bandwidth from the clients to the server is insignificant. A low latency is advantageous for cloud clients because all surface manipulations are reported to the server.

The normal performance criteria also apply to the cloud clients, since the processing is carried out in Vertec anyway. Only the entire transfer to the clients is omitted, which brings enormous advantages when using Vertec via VPN, for example.

The Vertec desktop app is not designed for use over the network. It makes many individual accesses over the network when processing business logic and is therefore sensitive to long response times (latency).

The desktop app runs slower because it waits for each packet to respond. This can also be problematic on otherwise very fast lines (high network bandwidth). If packets are stopped on the way at a station (e.g., a misconfigured switch), it does not help if the routes between them are fast. An indicator of high latency is when response times for pings are on average greater than 1 millisecond.

We recommend that you use the Vertec cloud app or the Vertec web app (cloud clients) instead.

If the use of the Vertec desktop app is unavoidable, a Client Installation should be done.

If the client accesses the server via VPN (WAN), latency is crucial. Vertec can be operated via VPN. It is recommended to use the Vertec Cloud Clients, as the Vertec desktop app does not perform well in the WAN.