Running application over network - Slow speeds

[ChrisIT95]

Basically, there are three PC's in total connected to this network.

Bit of background:
The machine which has the application on the hard drive is of decent spec (intel core2quad, 4gb ram, 500gb hdd).

At the start it was first all networked all wired connected to a router which had max speeds of 100Mbps.

This application is an invoice generating software. It reads and writes back on the main machine. On the main machine which holds the software, it takes less than 10 seconds to complete producing the invoice. However the other machines on the network which accessed the application through the network took over 8 mins to generate one invoice.

Application is stored onto the root of the main machines C: drive and then this folder is shared (drive mapped).

Moving on, I then upgraded all the machines with Gigabit NIC's, Cat6 cabling and also changed the router to one which has a gigabit switch (netgear n router).

The time to generate one invoice now takes between 1 - 2 minutes which is a significant improvement for these two machines.

Does anyone have any suggestions to make it do it any quicker?
Would connecting a NAS drive and running the application from there be any faster?
Would the main computer require more RAM?
Or is it just due to the local networks maximum speed?

Note these files are not big at all, it is numerous amount of small files totalling upto around 14mb in total.

Thanks

 

[USAFRet]

From my developer viewpoint:

For the same procedure - If it takes 10 seconds locally, and 1-2, or 8-10 minutes over a 100/1000Mb LAN....something is wrong with the application. i.e. written badly and doing things it does not need to do.

What is this invoice thing doing? What is it talking to?

 

[ChrisIT95]

From my developer viewpoint:

For the same procedure - If it takes 10 seconds locally, and 1-2, or 8-10 minutes over a 100/1000Mb LAN....something is wrong with the application. i.e. written badly and doing things it does not need to do.

What is this invoice thing doing? What is it talking to?

I spoke to the guy who partly wrote the program, he seemed fairly clueless and useless and i've taken it into my own hands now. To be honest I'm not 100% sure how the software actually functions, Its for a small business i'm working on atm. The software is all in one folder and the two other PC's on the network access this same folder. It does read and write operations and the output is around 14mb.

I have also run network file tests and that reports speeds upto 200MBps Read/Write

 

[USAFRet]

How does this thing run? In a browser? Client window?
Do you know what language it was written in?

 

[ChrisIT95]

How does this thing run? In a browser? Client window?
Do you know what language it was written in?

My apologies for the vague detail. I've just remembered it's Alpha Five Database software.

 

[USAFRet]

How does this thing run? In a browser? Client window?
Do you know what language it was written in?

My apologies for the vague detail. I've just remembered it's Alpha Five Database software.

I've dabbled with Alpha Five in the past. But just like every other platform, be it Oracle, VB, VBA, MySQL, Java....they can be good, or they can be crappy.

If the guy who created it is this guy:
"he seemed fairly clueless and useless"
...throwing more hardware at it probably won't help.

10 seconds locally, and 2 minutes over a gigabit LAN - if the hardware is right, then the code is wrong.
How is other access from a client to that same server box? Can you open a random file from the server relatively quickly?

 

[USAFRet]

Another thing you said:
Application is stored onto the root of the main machines C: drive
...leads me, as a developer, to think there is some code issues going on.

 

[ChrisIT95]

How does this thing run? In a browser? Client window?
Do you know what language it was written in?

My apologies for the vague detail. I've just remembered it's Alpha Five Database software.

I've dabbled with Alpha Five in the past. But just like every other platform, be it Oracle, VB, VBA, MySQL, Java....they can be good, or they can be crappy.

If the guy who created it is this guy:
"he seemed fairly clueless and useless"
...throwing more hardware at it probably won't help.

10 seconds locally, and 2 minutes over a gigabit LAN - if the hardware is right, then the code is wrong.
How is other access from a client to that same server box? Can you open a random file from the server relatively quickly?

Apart from the software, the network setup which I implemented is outstanding in terms of file transfer speeds and printing large files to a network printer. I just thought that the fact that it was reading over the network from a C: drive of a machine caused the delay.

In terms of the location of the software, it works perfectly locally so it shouldn't be an issue. I guess I shall be keeping the hardware as it is.
Many thanks for your input, much appreciated.

 

[USAFRet]

I just thought that the fact that it was reading over the network from a C: drive of a machine caused the delay.

Where it resides on the server should not have an impact on the overall speed of things. But having on the C root is a rookie move. And as such we probably see other rookie consequences.

 

[ChrisIT95]

I just thought that the fact that it was reading over the network from a C: drive of a machine caused the delay.

Where it resides on the server should not have an impact on the overall speed of things. But having on the C root is a rookie move. And as such we probably see other rookie consequences.

The location of that application was decided before I took on the work

Again thanks for your help