As a newbie to Servoy Ive been playing around with the CRM solution that comes with the Servoy download. Something that has me a little concerned though, is the overall speed of things, i.e., clicking through records, going from one form to another all seems a bit sluggish compared to using FileMaker 6. Things dont seem to be very snappy . Is this what the end user (Client) will experience or is it just because Im using Servoy Developer? Does it get a lot slower once you have tens of thousands of records?
Can anyone give me an idea of its deployed speed vs FileMaker?
Im using Servoy R2 on a 800 mhz G4 Mac running OSX 10.3.7 with 1 GB of RAM.
There is another thread under the Server forum about the subject too but the sluggishness is something you probably experience the most when a form is loaded for the first time. After that there should be no issue anymore.
Next to that you are (probably) running the developer. If I am correct that will have some influence too.
Lastly the mac. I am a happy mac user from the first LC generation. Though I must admitt that also my Powermac 1.33 mhz performs fair to good on java. Since I have a pc (AMD64 3000+) and a Powermac G5 2.5Dual I know what real speed is in my testing/developing environment.
The user however won’t have much of an issue with comparable hardware to yours…
IT2BE:
There is another thread under the Server forum about the subject too but the sluggishness is something you probably experience the most when a form is loaded for the first time. After that there should be no issue anymore.
Even after a form has been loaded things still seem slow.
IT2BE:
Next to that you are (probably) running the developer. If I am correct that will have some influence too.
Yes, I’m in Developer.
IT2BE:
Lastly the mac. I am a happy mac user from the first LC generation. Though I must admitt that also my Powermac 1.33 mhz performs fair to good on java. Since I have a pc (AMD64 3000+) and a Powermac G5 2.5Dual I know what real speed is in my testing/developing environment.
I want a Dual G5!
IT2BE:
The user however won’t have much of an issue with comparable hardware to yours…
Hope this helps a little!
Well, I’m still worried whether Servoy will just get too slow to use when you have a large solution. Hopefully my concern is misplaced.
Are there any exFileMaker users out there who can give me some idea of what the users should expect re speed of converted solutions?
where Filemaker will start to slow down on recordsets let’s say bigger than 10000 Servoy won’t slow down AT ALL. Meaning if you have a table with 10000000 ( I didn’t really count the zeroes here). Servoy will have the same speed you are experiencing now.
Even when you are developping on a mac , you’re users will probably be on pc. As Marcel stated big speed difference with a G4
as a case. I have my server (OSX G4) in Florida and clients for the moment connecting with “OLD” pc’s (PIII,PII) from Belgium over normal (192 up, 3 Mb down) ADSL perfectly happy with the speed. I am moving them awy from Filemaker Server as we speak
where Filemaker will start to slow down on recordsets let’s say bigger than 10000 Servoy won’t slow down AT ALL. Meaning if you have a table with 10000000 ( I didn’t really count the zeroes here). Servoy will have the same speed you are experiencing now.
as a case. I have my server (OSX G4) in Florida and clients for the moment connecting with “OLD” pc’s (PIII,PII) from Belgium over normal (192 up, 3 Mb down) ADSL perfectly happy with the speed. I am moving them awy from Filemaker Server as we speak
That’s good to hear.
Interested in a Filemaker Server license ?
Good luck!
Well, now that it seems I don’t need to worry about speed issues I can now start getting stuck into learning JavaScript. Mmm …
I am about to consider Servoy for a new project, and I was pleased to read about Dr McCann’s project featured rather proudly as a ‘success story’ complete with link to try. I take it that this application is about as close as one can get to being a real user of a Servoy application deployed over the internet. I also also pleased to read that the makers of Servoy claim that Servoy is efficient over the internet.
To be frank & direct, I was a little suprised by the speed of this application. On my Win XP P4 3GHz machine, I found forms took much longer than I expected (around 10-20 seconds, sometimes longer) to open, and then when I clicked on a button, the response was sluggish and then still more waiting time to open another form.
I’ve read above that an initial delay while forms are cached should be expected, however I find with repeated access - there is still a delay. I think this delay issue is independent of using ‘developer’ version, since I simply use the final solution as a regular user.
My initial feeling suggests to me that the speed issue is simply a Java runtime issue - of course I shouldn’t expect a Java application to be comparable to a native application. Is this a fair assessment of the sluggishness - or is there something else? I’ve read elsewhere (on another site) that Servoy has some speed issues with ‘complex forms’. Maybe because I am running it over the internet (doubt it)?
I fear my client will complain about the speed (compared to compiled apps). Please I’d like to know the reason for the speed issues, and whether there is a solution - before I start development. BTW this is not a slight against the developer of the app - I think the design/operation is good & am grateful for the app being on display.
We have a customer in Real Estate (short term appartment rental), 4 offices total of 25 users (15 of them working permanently)+ 2 working at home.
It’s a complex solution with the following databases:
-appartments (2000+)
-contracts (6000+)
-invoices (20000 actually, 4000 created each month)
-companies and contacts (5000+)
-planning
-banking
-accounting
The solution has more than 200 forms.
We host Servoy in a datacenter (270 Euro/month).
Every office has a simple DSL internet connection (± 70 Euro/month).
They are very happy with the solution and his speed, even on an old PC (700mhz) it works fine. But when developing, we are trying to avoid “expensive” forms and methods. For example, when loading the solution we use “clear found set” on every form, which increases the speed enormously.
Thanks very much for your response. To me, it highlights for the beginner there could be some tips about performance enhancement.
So far, I’ve yet to find anything about this in the docs.. so unless it is there somewhere - I strongly urge the Servoy developers/documentation writers to please put together some tips regarding performance enhancement for new users. If it is written somewhere - please tell me also.
I’d be glad to hear from other developer’s how they feel about the overall performance of Servoy (particularly forms).
Thanks - I just quickly tried it out. I was impressed by the visual quality (design/look-and-feel) of your app!
At first, the client started and downloaded new jar files. I guess you are using a later version that me (I was using the latest version as per the current installer - not using the latest beta). One disconcerting thing - which I noticed with the other app too - is the user sees absolutely nothing for (in my case) about 5 minutes, then I saw Servoy (with your Mac-like blank background), and then the app just froze - with no ‘loading solution’. So I tried to quit but I couldn’t - so I relaunched the web page, and then the solution loading took place. It took quite a while to download the solution (expected) about 5 mins (on my ADSL up to 128kbps).
Thereafter the app was basically fine. However I noticed there is the tendancy to cache the first time loading a form. That is, pressing one of your side nav buttons takes noticeably longer the first time to display the form compared to the successive times - however even on the successive times - it still takes about 1-2 seconds from button press to actually display the form. I think most people may be fine with that - but impatient doctors.. I don’t know - is there any way to speed this up?
Another weird thing I see is - where there should be text in those nav buttons, I just see dots - I’d say this is something to do with my internationalisation options in Windows (i.e. non-unicode chars maps to Japanese in my case). Despite that, I didn’t think it would do that - unless that text is not in English?? Anyway this is obviously a side issue - though I also noticed this with Dr McCann’s app as well. So something funny there - I’ll try setting that internationalisation option off.
Anyway the main issue for me is.. whether this kind of form display performance is ok or not with my client.. having said that - I just tried the CRM app with the developer, and it seems a lot faster.. well I guess it’s just the reality of running the app (or fetching data) over the internet vs everything on one machine. Surely running this app over an office LAN os surely gonna be better..
When you connect to a server the first time it downloads the whole client.
This takes some time. Any following launches take MUCH less time. (unless you upgraded the server then the client will update itself)
Also keep in mind your made a connection from Australia to Europe. That’s a long way around the world
Also you have a speedy connection, the server has a speedy connection.
But your connection to the server is as fast as the weakest link in your route to the server.
What are you planning to use Servoy for?
A LAN solution ? or an internet solution?
To check LAN speeds just have your machine that runs Developer be connected to a network and point a webbrowser from another machine on the network to your computer running Developer.
Thus http://yourdevelopermachineip:8080/
Running developer means you also have Servoy Server running.
Thanks alot - what you said makes sense.. I kick myself a bit
The app will mainly be office LAN based.. though I imagine there will be times when people will want to access it remotely - from home using dialup - in that case it will be a slow start.. but granted only slow once. The boss’ mindset is shove a disc in to install an app - is it possible to do it that way with Servoy - or it always has to be over the network (that’s what I assume)?
There will also be the case where someone will want to use the system ‘offline’ then resync that data with the main system back in the office. Is that possible with Servoy? I came across a mention of an ‘offline mode’ using a Sybase component in the manual.
mskuma:
The app will mainly be office LAN based.. though I imagine there will be times when people will want to access it remotely - from home using dialup - in that case it will be a slow start.. but granted only slow once. The boss’ mindset is shove a disc in to install an app - is it possible to do it that way with Servoy - or it always has to be over the network (that’s what I assume)?
Servoy has a zero deployment model. This means you don’t have to go around and install clients on machines. The client is installed (and updated) the time you first connect to the server.
After 2-3 times launching it asks if it should make a permanent icon on your desktop.
The amount of launches depends on the settings in Java Webstart (per machine).
After that a user can just double click that icon and it launches and connects the client.
mskuma:
There will also be the case where someone will want to use the system ‘offline’ then resync that data with the main system back in the office. Is that possible with Servoy? I came across a mention of an ‘offline mode’ using a Sybase component in the manual.
Servoy also provides a Servoy Runtime license. With this you can create offline solutions.
With Sybase Mobilink you can make the syncing of data happen. Ofcourse when you don’t use Sybase as your backend you need to look for other sync options.
But for most situations you can use a network connection and work live on the database. Like for working from home or traveling. Most of the time you can have an internet connection, even in hotels
We are hosting (on a standard Dell desktop) a couple of Servoy solutions for customers so that they can see & use systems as they are being developed.
I recently used a slow hotel dial-up connection 43kps to test and was impressed with Servoy’s speed. One Contacts table has @ 9000 records and even searching on a calculated field (all address lines) plus a free text Notes field the slowest response time was 8-10 seconds to return over 200 records. Searching for a specific name or company generally took less than 2-3 seconds. Once a list had displayed response time was virtaully immediate.
Over a standard network - or with broadband connection - I think you’ll be well pleased.
I generally warn people that first Client download will take 3-4 mins - but subsequent launches are generally around 1min. Servoy is slower than opening a web page but the user experience is SO much richer that it’s worth the wait.
ROCLASI:
when you don’t use Sybase as your backend you need to look for other sync options.
…
Most of the time you can have an internet connection, even in hotels
Unfortunately these people will use the app all day long in a remote place - so this will be a fairly big toll call, so offline sync is probably the way to go - if anyone knows of a sync solution for MySQL please let me know.
grahamg:
Servoy is slower than opening a web page but the user experience is SO much richer that it’s worth the wait.
This makes me want to ask the obvious question being a new person (with a sensitive client). Putting aside all the pros & cons of using Servoy vs (e.g. 4D or RealBASIC) from a pure application & UI/forms performance point of view is Java noticeably slower than compiled options? I’d especially like to hear from those of you who’ve compared the likes of apps/performance of RealBASIC/4D etc to Servoy deployed on Windows.
I can imagine the act of querying & data processing behind forms is largely independent from this point.
After readying through this post, I am wondering does anyone have some tips or thoughts on hosting options that will speed up a remotely hosted solution?
How can one reduce the delay from navigating between records?
Is the bottle neck only at the bandwidth?
Is it worth hosting the database on a different box from the servoy application?
Does one database make a big difference over another?
Should the repository db be on the servoy server or the database server (Assuming they are seperate)?
How about hops between server to client?
VPS Hosting? Dedicated Hosting? Co-Located Hosting?
Does geography matter?
Is this discussion about optimzing a host going one somewhere else?
In the next few months I will have FM 5.5 server, Unlimited 5.5, Developer 5.5, and about 60 5.0 / 6.0 FM licenses (some in 10 user packs) available thanks to servoy.