Upgrading our network

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pete

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Hi.

We have a small LAN at our business, server with around 11 or 12 clients (domain setup). The switch is a standard 24 x 10/100 with two gigabit ports one of which feeds into the server.

The network is used primarily for Pastel, and we are finding more and more that Pastel is extremely slow.

The cabling infrastructure is a decent quality Cat5e cable (ADC Krone).

Do you think it will help if I install a 24port gigabit (all ports) switch, and put in gigabit cards in each client, and leave the existing cabling intact? What kind of bandwidth can I expect on a C5e cable using gigabit hardware on either end of it?

Will there be additional strain on the [elderly] server?

Many thanks.
 
Currently, the only twisted pair cables that support gigabit Ethernet are CAT5E and CAT6
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I wouldn't think the server strain will change. If the server is the bottleneck now already, change the server not the network. I would not have thought that Pastel would generate that much network activity, esp not with 12 machines. We never had any problem on a 40 PC network, with 10 or so using Pastel, the other 30 dealing with large AutoCAD files.
 
I wouldn't think changing the switch would make any difference, unless your clients are running 100% network utilization which I highly doubt.

If you run XP have a look at the network utilization under task manager.

The problem is more likely to lie with with server - are you running scsi? How much CPU/memory. Have to run any performance monitors on the server? This should show you if its IO/CPU or memory.
 
There's definitely a problem somewhere. We're using Pastel Partner 2009, which runs on a Pervasive db, as opposed to Evolution using Sequel. According to our Pastel agent, therein [pervasive] lies the problem - could be a sales pitch to get us to upgrade to Evolution, but I do think that pervasive is antiquated.
 
gregmcc said:
I wouldn't think changing the switch would make any difference, unless your clients are running 100% network utilization which I highly doubt.

If you run XP have a look at the network utilization under task manager.

The problem is more likely to lie with with server - are you running scsi? How much CPU/memory. Have to run any performance monitors on the server? This should show you if its IO/CPU or memory.
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I've ordered the hardware, and am going to switch over this afternoon. BUT, I do think that I need an expert to take a look at the server setup, and make recommendations on how we should go forward. Maybe take a look at all the hardware (client pc's included) as a whole and suggest how we get this right.

The server is old. It's a P4 3gig, with 2 gigs of ram, running windows server 2003. We're a Microsoft Action Pack subscriber, so I have all the latest MS software, including server 2008 or 2009 (can't remember which is the latest).

I notice that with pastel, when I generate an invoice for a customer who doesn't contain a large history on the database, the response in instantaneous. But when I access the cash sales account (the busiest account with the most history) I sit and wait. And I don't know where in the system to look to find out why this is so. Also, starting Pastel up takes up to 2 full minutes on some of the machines, all the while the network activity lights flashing like mad.

Anyone interested in the job?

Premises in maitland, ct.
 
Also might be worth looking at Pastel - i don't know too much about it - but does any maintenance get done on it. It must be some kind of database and therefore should need tuning/cleaning up.
 
We have Pastel running here on our school network, on about 4 machines. We just upgraded to Partner 09, and while local client speed has increased a bit, network perfomance is still a little slow. I've noticed that the faster the client machine, the better the response is. Also, the computer acting as the Pastel "server" should be beefy. There's also something in the manual about having a fixed gateway or something, don't know if that will help.

I don't like the Pervasive database system, it just seems so inefficient compared to other solutions out there. Pastel really needs to chuck it out, just like they did with Btrieve.
 
Asha'man X said:
We have Pastel running here on our school network, on about 4 machines. We just upgraded to Partner 09, and while local client speed has increased a bit, network perfomance is still a little slow. I've noticed that the faster the client machine, the better the response is. Also, the computer acting as the Pastel "server" should be beefy. There's also something in the manual about having a fixed gateway or something, don't know if that will help.

I don't like the Pervasive database system, it just seems so inefficient compared to other solutions out there. Pastel really needs to chuck it out, just like they did with Btrieve.
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I have also noticed this.

But... what has changed since I last upgraded all the pc's? When the pc's were new a year or so ago, Pastel was nippy.

The answer to this question is what I need to search for.
 
Not sure exactly what your problem is, but I have noticed normal applications and small networks hardly benefit from the 1GB/100mb difference, unless a very large amount of bandwidth is required. This sounds more like an application problem, could be a problem with the database?

Let us know, would be interesting to see if the 1Gb network solved your problem.
 
I'm no Pastel expert, but if you wait like that in the cash sales account, it sounds like the database is pretty big. Here at our school, the book keeper does most of the Partner work on the "server", with the other people using it doing fairly light work in comparison.

It may just be that the database has grown so big that the network is affected.

The server also sounds like a weak spot, as the P4 is a single core chip, which doesn't handle workloads to well. I found that after upgrading the old book keepers computer, which is also the Partner server to a Core 2 Duo and 2GB ram helped a heck of a lot.

Hopefully this helps a bit :)
 
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