We have Navision Attain 3.6 using the propriety Database. The database size is 45Gb, spread over 5 mirrored disks, with 50-60 concurrent users, 750Mb DBMS cache on a decent spec server.
We have a whole range of Navision modules, including point of sale. We have 5 retail outlets connected via 2Mb leased lines. When the retail outlets do their end of day statements they start to grin to a halt, locking each other out in the process. Our coms providers say the band width is fine and there must be an application problem and our Navision providers are saying it is a coms problem. I am not sure how this process runs, is the end of day statement process that intensive, is there an application problem, is 2mb really enough and if not, should I go back to using citrix when we happily ran Navision over kilostream circuits.
Sorry no experience with any of the POS Add-Ons. (Which one is it by the way).
In any case though running Navision over a 2Meg line is going to be very very slow. Even a 10meg LAN is pushing it if you are doing anything transaction intensive. I think Citrix is going to be needed here.
Its the Whole Point of Sale Module + a large chunk of customisation - Thats about the most accurate description I can give. In the retail outlets the PCs are acting as Tills and posting direct into the main Attain DB…
I think you may be correct in your assumption on the 2Mb links. Though we did have the 2Mb links directly piped to our HQ where the Attain servier resides and we did not appear to have these problems. They only appeared to start whern these links were moved to a central coms hub and then back to the HQ. This I am sure has increased the problem.
Navision does not have POS built in, what you are running is an Add-ON, there are a few out there. The most common these days seems to be Landsteiner, who merged with Strengur, so they are both one product now. Also TEC in the UK had a POS Add-On,and there are a whole lot of less known products.
Without knowing more about the system you have, its hard to give any concrete advise. But if it is posting direct over a 2 meg link, it will be slow.
Wow, 2MB/s - With Navision we have a client/server architecture and of course, 2MB/s is not only bloody slow in response time and throughput, it will also lock out other users for the extra time a transaction takes. Navison talks to SQL Server record-wise… one at a time… each operation representing at least one roundtrip. I am pretty sure you will experience a remarkable boost if you use a terminal server connected to SQL via 1Gbit.
Always remember: Navision likes to talk alot!
Knowing Navision on SQL, I am pretty sure there’s more tuning potential by creating missing indexes, cleaning up SIFT etc.
Some POS Add-On work quite well with 2 MB/s. I know that they work with a local DB and at the end of the day they synchronize with master DB. If you are working directly to DB them you will need citrix.
Yes its a direct client/server over 2mb not using data director. WE have aloways found it slower that teh HQ but acceptable performance.
However, since my last post we have got our Solution centre to remove a load of housekeeping routines from the end of day statement balancing program run by the tills to cash up at the end of day (deletion of redundant records) . The process now runs as fast as it ever did. Still not sure why it started slowing down - I assume it must be the size of DB and amount of transactions.
Our 4 retail showrooms are now happliy running the EPOS mobule over a 2Mb link
[:)] But first the Navision provider told you that the problems are the coms. However, I saw some applications slowing down like this and were working fine before for 2-4 years. That was “just” a missing key.