We solved our DOORS client performance problems and I wanted to post the results here because the solution is not mentioned in the knowledge centre client performance page: https://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSYQBZ_9.6.1/com.ibm.doors.administering.doc/topics/r_improve_perf_db_client.html Our problem was DOORS was a bit slow and we were getting 5 hour archive restore times for 2.5GB archives (we have a lot of these from our contractors). We just had a new DOORS server built and were wondering what was causing the slow restore times. it turned out the client processor speed was the issue. Several machines were tested and the archive restore of the same archive file was recorded. While the computers are different makes and models, they each had 8GB of RAM and were running Windows 7.1. Our SOE computers are HP ZBook notepads, and are under powered as we work in an Agile environment and you don't need powerful computers for emails or to update your Facebook page. And this is Australia after all; we're not allowed to design anything here anymore. The results of the testing are:
From the above, it is apparent that client processor speed is the determining factor. Attached is a plot of processor speed vs restore times. Recommendation: The faster the processor the better the client performance. Client Processor speed should be >3GHz.
ADent - Thu Jan 07 20:46:24 EST 2016 |
Re: Improving DOORS Client Performance
Hello John, |
Re: Improving DOORS Client Performance Thanks for your response. Here is some more information. We were running DOORS 9.4. Our new server went live in November last year and has DOORS 9.6. The clients were also upgraded to 9.6 at the same time. Our standard laptops are ZBook 14, i5 4300U - so called first generation. There was no appreciable increase in performance in going to 9.6 on our zbooks. I repeated a restore of a large archive this morning and monitored the performance of the laptop and server. The Restore has two parts - the first part which restores the modules takes about half an hour. The Project restore and post processing - adding the links, takes the remain time of around 5 hours. The laptop memory rises from 2GB to 3.25GB which is fairly constant throughout the restore. The CPU Usage peaks at 40% and stays below 20 for most of the time. On the server the first part of the restore saw disk I/O and CPU fairly busy, peaking around 1MB/sec for I/O and 80% for CPU. Network was above 10MB/S. During the post processing part of the restore, the server settled right down to low levels of I/O, CPU and network. The laptop is set to high performance and we cant change it. Control Panel > System confirmed base CPU speed of 1.9GHz, with turbo boost up to 2.6GHz for the 2 active cores. The IT folks think the network is fine. They suggested making the DOORS process high priority on the client - I will try. And the result was the restore time was slightly longer 5 hrs and 58 mins. The network was also lightly loaded at this time of year. The computer is otherwise fine, no problems running Word or updating Facebook, no freezing or things like that. We have similar results from other zbooks on the network. My conclusion is that the computer is going as fast as it can, its just a low performance machine. |
Re: Improving DOORS Client Performance ADent - Mon Jan 11 21:52:09 EST 2016 Thanks for your response. Here is some more information. We were running DOORS 9.4. Our new server went live in November last year and has DOORS 9.6. The clients were also upgraded to 9.6 at the same time. Our standard laptops are ZBook 14, i5 4300U - so called first generation. There was no appreciable increase in performance in going to 9.6 on our zbooks. I repeated a restore of a large archive this morning and monitored the performance of the laptop and server. The Restore has two parts - the first part which restores the modules takes about half an hour. The Project restore and post processing - adding the links, takes the remain time of around 5 hours. The laptop memory rises from 2GB to 3.25GB which is fairly constant throughout the restore. The CPU Usage peaks at 40% and stays below 20 for most of the time. On the server the first part of the restore saw disk I/O and CPU fairly busy, peaking around 1MB/sec for I/O and 80% for CPU. Network was above 10MB/S. During the post processing part of the restore, the server settled right down to low levels of I/O, CPU and network. The laptop is set to high performance and we cant change it. Control Panel > System confirmed base CPU speed of 1.9GHz, with turbo boost up to 2.6GHz for the 2 active cores. The IT folks think the network is fine. They suggested making the DOORS process high priority on the client - I will try. And the result was the restore time was slightly longer 5 hrs and 58 mins. The network was also lightly loaded at this time of year. The computer is otherwise fine, no problems running Word or updating Facebook, no freezing or things like that. We have similar results from other zbooks on the network. My conclusion is that the computer is going as fast as it can, its just a low performance machine. Hello,
I am having performance issues with Archive restores myself. We recently upgraded from Doors 9.2 to DOORS 9.6 and our restore time for a 2gb+ archive went from 4-5 hrs with 9.2 for a server based restore to upwards of 25-30 hrs on 9.6. We have also determined this delay also impacts restoring a single module from a project archive as well, over 3 times as long in 9.6. I have a ticket open with IBM on this and so far we have no solution or even a root cause. Our 9.2 server is a Windows 2008 R2 virtual server with 2 processors and 6gb of RAM Our 9.6 server is a Windows 2012 R2 virtual server with 4 processors and 8gb of RAM.
It doesn't seem to matter which version of the client 9.2 or 9.6 I use to initiate the restore. If it goes to a 9.2 server it takes a few hours, if it goes to a 9.6 server it takes 3 to 5 times longer. I have tried this on multiple servers with the same results.
On the Server side, DOORS is still a 32 bit single threaded application for both 9.2 and 9.6. The Doors 9.6 client is a 64 bit client.
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Re: Improving DOORS Client Performance WardEdwards - Tue Jan 12 10:39:50 EST 2016 Hello,
I am having performance issues with Archive restores myself. We recently upgraded from Doors 9.2 to DOORS 9.6 and our restore time for a 2gb+ archive went from 4-5 hrs with 9.2 for a server based restore to upwards of 25-30 hrs on 9.6. We have also determined this delay also impacts restoring a single module from a project archive as well, over 3 times as long in 9.6. I have a ticket open with IBM on this and so far we have no solution or even a root cause. Our 9.2 server is a Windows 2008 R2 virtual server with 2 processors and 6gb of RAM Our 9.6 server is a Windows 2012 R2 virtual server with 4 processors and 8gb of RAM.
It doesn't seem to matter which version of the client 9.2 or 9.6 I use to initiate the restore. If it goes to a 9.2 server it takes a few hours, if it goes to a 9.6 server it takes 3 to 5 times longer. I have tried this on multiple servers with the same results.
On the Server side, DOORS is still a 32 bit single threaded application for both 9.2 and 9.6. The Doors 9.6 client is a 64 bit client.
We never timed our restores on DOORS 9.4. I guess it was around 3 hours from memory. We had been agiled, and had received 1.9GHz notebooks about 12 months ago. Our databases were getting bigger and bigger as well. Once it started taking a whole day to restore an archive we did some testing. We weren't getting any speed improvement with DOORS 9.6. Talking to the IT guys yesterday, they were adamant there was nothing wrong with our notebooks or the network. The notepad was going as fast as it could, but wasn't using anywhere near all its resources. IT speculated the bottleneck was likely DOORS on the server. One of our offices still had fast i5 desktops and they tried a restore (we all use the same server) and got a restore time of 55 minutes. Then I plotted the times based on CPU speed and the graph above resulted, which was a near straight line. I have a fast laptop on order and will test it when it arrives. The question I would ask is what is the clock speed of your client computers? |
Re: Improving DOORS Client Performance ADent - Tue Jan 12 17:19:12 EST 2016 We never timed our restores on DOORS 9.4. I guess it was around 3 hours from memory. We had been agiled, and had received 1.9GHz notebooks about 12 months ago. Our databases were getting bigger and bigger as well. Once it started taking a whole day to restore an archive we did some testing. We weren't getting any speed improvement with DOORS 9.6. Talking to the IT guys yesterday, they were adamant there was nothing wrong with our notebooks or the network. The notepad was going as fast as it could, but wasn't using anywhere near all its resources. IT speculated the bottleneck was likely DOORS on the server. One of our offices still had fast i5 desktops and they tried a restore (we all use the same server) and got a restore time of 55 minutes. Then I plotted the times based on CPU speed and the graph above resulted, which was a near straight line. I have a fast laptop on order and will test it when it arrives. The question I would ask is what is the clock speed of your client computers? Intel Core i5-4300U CPU 1.90ghz 2.50 ghz we have tested this with the DOORS client running on a # of different workstations as well as running the client directly on the database server.
In my latest round of tests, I have found that the 9.2 client produces a server log file (level 6) during the restore of 350-450mbs. where the 9.6 client produces a server log file (level 6) of 35-40 GBs the size is consistent regardless which server version the client is connected to. |
Re: Improving DOORS Client Performance WardEdwards - Wed Jan 13 09:58:31 EST 2016 Intel Core i5-4300U CPU 1.90ghz 2.50 ghz we have tested this with the DOORS client running on a # of different workstations as well as running the client directly on the database server.
In my latest round of tests, I have found that the 9.2 client produces a server log file (level 6) during the restore of 350-450mbs. where the 9.6 client produces a server log file (level 6) of 35-40 GBs the size is consistent regardless which server version the client is connected to. Try a fast computer >3GHz and use that machine for Restoring Archives. A workaround until Support can determine the problem and Product Management implement a solution. |
Re: Improving DOORS Client Performance ADent - Wed Jan 13 18:26:50 EST 2016 Try a fast computer >3GHz and use that machine for Restoring Archives. A workaround until Support can determine the problem and Product Management implement a solution. We have also tried this from a client installed directly on the database server which is running much faster hardware and while its faster, its still far slower than running the same tasks with the same data in DOORS 9.2. |
Re: Improving DOORS Client Performance We found that the CPU on the server was not much faster than our laptops. Where the big improvement came was with the fast laptop:
Given the hardware recommendation of 2.8 to 3.2GHz, we will use this to justify a few fast laptops. (Actually the hardware recommendation is for a 2.8 to 3.2GHz Xeon for both the server and client).
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