Question
Arbortext Editor, Offsite Installations, and slow performance
Hello, I'd like to pick the lobes of those of you who have had
experience with supporting offsite (particularly offshore) Arbortext
installations.
Basically, I am supporting a set of authors in India, who up until 3
weeks ago, were using a custom directory on one of their servers that I
kept r-synced with a custom directory on a US server. We are using
Editor 5.3 M040 on WinXP SP3 PCs, most are new (dual-core, 2G RAM or
better). We are working with an in-house developed DTD and FOSI.
We have recently gotten them access to our test server with the custom
directory we use to test changes before migrating to production, which
is a server located in the US.
What I am experiencing is starting the India Editor can take 1-4 minutes
on startup when loading with the US server custom directory. If the
India Editor is pointing to the India server custom directory, Startup
time is less than a minute.
Where things get really odd is once I get the India Editor open when
reading from the US server custom file, opening the first XML file takes
in the area of 7-11 minutes to open. Once I get that first document
open, I can open any document of the same doctype in 8-15 seconds. It
acts as if it's caching the doctype, and taking a ungodly amount of time
doing it.
I tried this both with the author logged in while I watched over webex,
and I tried while logged in myself (being an admin, I was trying to
eliminate possible access issues). This made no difference on
performance. I also tried loading a document both connected and not
connected to the PE server, this also made no difference in performance.
If I open an XML document authored with a different doctype, that first
document will also take 7-11 minutes, and 8-15 seconds for each
subsequent document.
I also took the custom directory down to the bare bones, no ACL, no
customizations of any kind except for the DTD, FOSI, and DCF. Catalog
file with one entry for this doctype. No discernable change in
performance.
The other oddity is if I point my APTCUSTOM at the custom directory on
the India server and start my US Editor, I have no performance issues.
Now, I have noticed, if I VPN into my network and try to start
Arbortext, it will spend 20 minutes initializing unless I take one
particular entry out of my catalog file. This entry points to a catalog
file on a UNIX share accessed through a Samba mount point. I also tried
this with the India Editors and it made no difference.
I also opened several other apps, opened files on both US and India
servers, but Arbortext seems to be the only one getting hung up trying
to startup and open documents. I was able to access all files for the
documents and the custom dir from the command line, so I don't see any
access issues.
Basically, I'm tired, cranky, and just looking for clues that might
point me in the right direction to troubleshoot this. What have other
folks been seeing? Are there any particular problems with, for
instance, samba shares? system-funcs in FOSIs? It just seems like
there's something I am missing here, but i've been benchmarking and
chasing this for a week, and it's starting to become a blur.
Also, does anyone know of a way to run Editor in a "debug" mode? I
found the atitrace.exe file in the bin with the epic.exe, but starting
it up provides almost no information (basically startup and quit). Is
there a flag, or setting, or environment variable that I can adjust to
turn up the logging? I'm really stumped here, and I have a requirement
to get these authors running on our test server.
Any and every idea and suggestion is greatly appreciated...
-Jason A. Buss
experience with supporting offsite (particularly offshore) Arbortext
installations.
Basically, I am supporting a set of authors in India, who up until 3
weeks ago, were using a custom directory on one of their servers that I
kept r-synced with a custom directory on a US server. We are using
Editor 5.3 M040 on WinXP SP3 PCs, most are new (dual-core, 2G RAM or
better). We are working with an in-house developed DTD and FOSI.
We have recently gotten them access to our test server with the custom
directory we use to test changes before migrating to production, which
is a server located in the US.
What I am experiencing is starting the India Editor can take 1-4 minutes
on startup when loading with the US server custom directory. If the
India Editor is pointing to the India server custom directory, Startup
time is less than a minute.
Where things get really odd is once I get the India Editor open when
reading from the US server custom file, opening the first XML file takes
in the area of 7-11 minutes to open. Once I get that first document
open, I can open any document of the same doctype in 8-15 seconds. It
acts as if it's caching the doctype, and taking a ungodly amount of time
doing it.
I tried this both with the author logged in while I watched over webex,
and I tried while logged in myself (being an admin, I was trying to
eliminate possible access issues). This made no difference on
performance. I also tried loading a document both connected and not
connected to the PE server, this also made no difference in performance.
If I open an XML document authored with a different doctype, that first
document will also take 7-11 minutes, and 8-15 seconds for each
subsequent document.
I also took the custom directory down to the bare bones, no ACL, no
customizations of any kind except for the DTD, FOSI, and DCF. Catalog
file with one entry for this doctype. No discernable change in
performance.
The other oddity is if I point my APTCUSTOM at the custom directory on
the India server and start my US Editor, I have no performance issues.
Now, I have noticed, if I VPN into my network and try to start
Arbortext, it will spend 20 minutes initializing unless I take one
particular entry out of my catalog file. This entry points to a catalog
file on a UNIX share accessed through a Samba mount point. I also tried
this with the India Editors and it made no difference.
I also opened several other apps, opened files on both US and India
servers, but Arbortext seems to be the only one getting hung up trying
to startup and open documents. I was able to access all files for the
documents and the custom dir from the command line, so I don't see any
access issues.
Basically, I'm tired, cranky, and just looking for clues that might
point me in the right direction to troubleshoot this. What have other
folks been seeing? Are there any particular problems with, for
instance, samba shares? system-funcs in FOSIs? It just seems like
there's something I am missing here, but i've been benchmarking and
chasing this for a week, and it's starting to become a blur.
Also, does anyone know of a way to run Editor in a "debug" mode? I
found the atitrace.exe file in the bin with the epic.exe, but starting
it up provides almost no information (basically startup and quit). Is
there a flag, or setting, or environment variable that I can adjust to
turn up the logging? I'm really stumped here, and I have a requirement
to get these authors running on our test server.
Any and every idea and suggestion is greatly appreciated...
-Jason A. Buss