How to improve SQL Server performance and thus HelpMaster's too.

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Last Post 11/23/2016 2:53 PM by Josh B

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Dennis Odri
HelpMaster tech support

Helpdesk leader
Posts:45
Points:81

5/20/2014 1:56 PM
I recently helped one of our many valued clients with an issue where his HelpMaster services were just stopping periodically due to SQL Server timeouts and Exchange mailbox access timeouts. I discovered that they had only allocated 2GB RAM and a single CPU to their HelpMaster server which is a Virtual Machine which also hosts their HelpMaster database under SQL Server 2012 Express. It seems that SQL Server 2012 requires a minimum of 4GB of RAM on the host. I also recommended that he enables another virtual CPU as HelpMaster uses multiple threads. We also set the SQL "Minimum server memory (in MB):" to 2048MB or 2GB from the SQL instance properties, on the "Memory" page. After doing the above he monitored his services for a week and not one single failure occurred! SUCCESS!! As I work from home via a relatively slow VPN/Internet connection, I decided to try increasing our own HelpMaster server's "Minimum server memory (in MB):" to 2048MB from 0MB also. I can now notice a real improvement in responsiveness from our system also, so I thought I would share this little nugget with all of our clients. Hope it helps you too.

Helpdesker
Posts:15
Points:21

11/23/2016 2:03 PM
One of the things that can really impact perceived performance is any screen that lists jobs or similar entities (Data grid views) in concert with User settings in the Field Chooser. The data grid views are everywhere - the job explorer, job history, search results etc. In my field chooser for Jobs entities I have: Job #, Date Logged, Priority, Job status, Summary, Client ID, Full name, {a field on the custom tab}, Job Type, Logged By, Assigned to, Actioned By - Last Action, Actioned Date - Last Action, Age clock running Age (Business time) and Closed by. Searching a client's job history takes about 3 seconds to finish rendering. If the field chooser is set to only display job number, those data grid views are very responsive <500ms.

Rod Weir
HelpMaster development team

Helpdesk Hall of Fame
Posts:555
Points:1017

11/23/2016 2:14 PM
You're right - the Field Chooser plays a big part in the speed of HelpMaster. The more fields = the bigger the database query = the bigger the network traffic etc... Some fields are more "expensive" than others. In particular, any of the "Business time" calculations, and the "Last actioned by" are fields that require additional database work. Customizing the Field Chooser (User menu) is a balance between getting the data you want, and the speed it takes to get it. In some cases also, database maintenance, indexing and optimization can also play a big role in speed and performance. HelpMaster development team Check out the HelpMaster roadmap

Helpdesker
Posts:15
Points:21

11/23/2016 2:53 PM
Thanks for the tip about business time. Makes total sense. Can you elaborate on anything we can do in terms of database maintenance, indexing or optimisations? I'm not a DBA but it would be really handy to have a forum post or something to refer our infrastructure people to.