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FPW2.6, TCP/IP and network speed

On Database » Microsoft FoxPro

4,686 words with 2 Comments; publish: Tue, 06 May 2008 16:47:00 GMT; (25046.88, « »)

I have a newish WinXP SP2 machine running FPW2.6a and tables sitting on a

NT4 file server.

I have a 100Mbps full duplex switched network connection with this server

[in the same switch as the server.]

I just ran a query and was amazed how slowly it was running. I pulled up the

task manager and the network tab showed me it was getting between 100KB and

200KB per second or around 1% of the bandwidth.

I decided to copy the table locally and run the query from there. I used

COPY TO and that was just as slow, it took minutes to copy the records. Once

available locally, the query completed in under 4 seconds. Obviously it was

going to be faster but I was still puzzled how slow the network query was

running.

I tried copying the same files that COPY TO operated on (the DBF, FPT and

CDX) in explorer and they all came over in a few seconds.

There was something funny with Fox and the network.

A colleague tried the same query on his PC and it ran many times faster. It

is a much slower PC (Win2K, less CPU, less RAM but with the same type of

network connection) and was also doing some network scans in another

application at the same time.

The big difference turned out to be him having NetBEUI protocol installed

whilst I only had TCP/IP.

We have a WINS server to provide name resolution, my limited understanding

of network protocols is that Windows should have just "done everything"

using NetBIOS over TCP/IP (also known as netbt) regardless of application -

ie no real difference. However installing NetBEUI made my query grab between

4MB and 5MB per second or around 45% bandwidth.

Does anyone know why or what is going on here?

TIA

Andrew Howell

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  • 2 Comments
    • Sounds like a typical scenario where an AnitVirus program is examining the

      file during access to it. Since another workstation can access it faster,

      it may be on your machine.

      Fred

      Microsoft Visual FoxPro MVP

      "Andrew Howell" <ajh.ms-foxpro.itags.org.work> wrote in message

      news:OOLbK0okFHA.3448.ms-foxpro.itags.org.TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...

      >I have a newish WinXP SP2 machine running FPW2.6a and tables sitting on a

      >NT4 file server.

      > I have a 100Mbps full duplex switched network connection with this server

      > [in the same switch as the server.]

      > I just ran a query and was amazed how slowly it was running. I pulled up

      > the task manager and the network tab showed me it was getting between

      > 100KB and 200KB per second or around 1% of the bandwidth.

      > I decided to copy the table locally and run the query from there. I used

      > COPY TO and that was just as slow, it took minutes to copy the records.

      > Once available locally, the query completed in under 4 seconds. Obviously

      > it was going to be faster but I was still puzzled how slow the network

      > query was running.

      > I tried copying the same files that COPY TO operated on (the DBF, FPT and

      > CDX) in explorer and they all came over in a few seconds.

      > There was something funny with Fox and the network.

      > A colleague tried the same query on his PC and it ran many times faster.

      > It is a much slower PC (Win2K, less CPU, less RAM but with the same type

      > of network connection) and was also doing some network scans in another

      > application at the same time.

      > The big difference turned out to be him having NetBEUI protocol installed

      > whilst I only had TCP/IP.

      > We have a WINS server to provide name resolution, my limited understanding

      > of network protocols is that Windows should have just "done everything"

      > using NetBIOS over TCP/IP (also known as netbt) regardless of

      > application - ie no real difference. However installing NetBEUI made my

      > query grab between 4MB and 5MB per second or around 45% bandwidth.

      > Does anyone know why or what is going on here?

      > --

      > TIA

      > Andrew Howell

      >

      #1; Tue, 06 May 2008 16:48:00 GMT
    • "Fred Taylor" <ftaylor.ms-foxpro.itags.org.mvps.org!REMOVE> wrote in message

      news:uOKvIsrkFHA.3448.ms-foxpro.itags.org.TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...

      > Sounds like a typical scenario where an AnitVirus program is examining the

      > file during access to it. Since another workstation can access it faster,

      > it may be on your machine.

      We run an antivirus product but all dbf, fpt and cdx are excluded from the

      scan. This is set in a group policy and cannot be modified by the user, so

      is no different on any workstation

      The point was, installing NetBEUI protocol speeded up the query by about 40

      times.

      Regards

      Andrew Howell

      #2; Tue, 06 May 2008 16:49:00 GMT