Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200 Performance Improvement, Tuning and Tips
Thanks to Jim Woodhead of DSD for finding this on the Sage Community Website.
The MAS 90/200 team has been working hard for the past 7 years to complete the transition to the new 4.x Business Framework. The 4.x Business Framework represents a complete re-write of the core MAS 90 functionality. The 4.x effort has solidified the MAS 90/200 foundation with modern software engineering principles. In addition, the MAS 90/200 team has adopted modern software development methodologies to help improve code quality and reliability. Finally, 4.x opens up a new world of integration options for third party application vendors, improving upgrade “survivability” and ease of integration.
With that said, 4.x also brings a number of performance “challenges,” especially for older client machines. The 4.x framework increases network traffic as well as client memory overhead. Following are some common performance issues and their solutions:
· Slow performance of MAS 90 or 200
o For client workstations, make sure to exclude virus scanning pointed at your network MAS 90/200 installation folder. Since these files are in constant change, an anti-virus scanner will attempt to “scan” each file every time this happens, causing significant performance issues. Note: MAS 90/200 supports only corporate editions of anti-virus packages.
o All modern versions of MS Windows can benefit from more RAM. If you are running less than 1 GB of RAM, consider upgrading to at least 2 GB’s. More is always better, in this case. The overall performance improvement in all Windows applications will be significant.
o If you are running MAS 200, network performance is critical. Make sure you are running at least 100MB network interface cards (in full duplex mode) and your workstation and cabling can support these speeds (Cat 5 10Base-T cabling is a good choice). If you are running a large installation with 20+ workstations, consider using a managed Ethernet switch to support high throughput. (Editors note: My experience is that Gigabit Ethernet is the single biggest improvement of speed with MAS90 in version 4.x. The application sizes have grown 400% since version 3.71 and all applications are pulled over the network when you launch them. 100mbs sounds fast, but its ‘megabits’ not ‘megabytes’ . Remember it takes 8bits to make a byte so this speed, with additional network collisions and overhead isn’t even enough to watch a single high definition video)
o If you are running MAS 200 and Crystal Reports are slow to print, consider trying the Crystal client/server ODBC driver.
· If you are running MAS 90 and experience intermittent hanging of the application, make sure all the printers in the windows printer manager are valid printers. If a printer has been removed from the network but not removed from the Windows printer manager, you may see intermittent hanging as MAS 90 attempts to connect to a printer.
o Network Configuration
§ Terminal Services – using terminal services for your MAS 90 can tremendously improve your overall application performance. The is especially true if the client workstations are not up to the latest performance specs or the system network bandwidth is not adequate. (Editors Note: Obviously if Terminal Services works well, so will Citrix. A little secret Sage doesn’t promote is the fact that with Terminal Services, it often obviates the need for MAS200 due to the performance gains)
§ Avoid Peer-to-Peer network configurations – network performance in these types of networks is not adequate for MAS 90/200.
Though there are thousands of online resources to help you tune your Windows PC performance, here are a few that provide the biggest “bang for the buck:”
· General Windows XP performance issues
o General performance – remove all unused applications. Go to “control panel” –> “add/remove programs” and uninstall everything you don’t use. You will be surprised how many applications you really don’t need or use. If you are not sure what the program is, don’t remove it. And don’t remove anything labeled as a “Hotfix” or “patch.”
o Hard drive performance – clean up your hard drives. Go to My Computer and right-click “local disk” and select properties. On the “general” tab, select “Disk Cleanup.” The utility will analyze your hard drive and recommend areas to be cleaned. Select the file types that can be removed and select “ok” and the utility will clean things up.
o Graphics performance – make sure you have the latest video driver for your graphics card. Most graphic card manufacturers have support sites that allow you to download the latest driver for free. If you are not sure how to do this, talk to your system administrator.
As the Windows operating system gets more sophisticated, the demand on PC hardware also increases. With the economy being so tight, many companies are delaying the purchase of new PC equipment until it is absolutely necessary. As businesses, we need to manage costs but we also need to manage productivity. If a sales person can enter 10% more sales orders per day, the cost of new hardware would pay for itself in a matter of weeks.
Something to consider-
Scot Larsen
Director, R&D MAS 90/200
Special thanks to Jeffrey Konstanzer, Manager, MAS 90/200 customer support team and John Nichols, Manager – MAS 90/200 Development, for their contributions to this posting.
© 2009, Mark Chinsky. All rights reserved. Formed in 2005. the 90 Minds Consulting Group is a collaboration of 100 Sage partners who independently join together online in a 24 x 7 private communication network to solve difficult issues for their customers. The group is not affiliated with Sage and our collaboration provides for unparalleled member access to early warnings of bugs and other issues which members in turn are encouraged to use to provide an exceptional customer experience.
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