Windows Server 2003 SP3 vs. 2008 R2

[JuliaHill]

Hello,

We have just about managed to upgrade to 10.1.0 (our ICT team helpfully generally leave it to the very small happy band of TM1 end users to sort themselves out. We are not hardcore IT experts (being planners) and we have to tell them what needs to be done. The blind leading the deaf possibly.)

We are wondering how we can most effectively improve our server speed, since we are finding cube loading and process running post-upgrade to be somewhat slower. The TM1 server is currently running MS Server 2003 SP3 (32-bit) on 2GB of RAM with 1 CPU and 20GB of storage. The client end is running Windows 2007.

We are going to ask for more RAM, and ICT also tell us that we could upgrade to MS Server 2008 R2. Having researched it, the reviews are largely very technical (as one would expect) and I find them largely impenetrable (being a non-techie). Does anybody have any straightforward knowledge of the possible pros and cons of upgrading to 2008 R2, and whether or not it might result in quicker usage? I suspect we will have to upgrade eventually anyway since 2003 is getting to be too old to be supported for much longer.

But any thoughts very welcome.

Also - if anybody knows why my TM1 ribbon in Excel now says 'XXX' instead of 'TM1' post-upgrade then that would solve a puzzling mystery. It's all working, but it's just faintly peculiar...

Thanks

Julia

[tomok]

Changing the OS from Server 2003 to Server 2008, while a good idea, is likely not going to affect the performance of TM1. What you need to do is hire an experienced TM1 consultant to do a quick review of your model(s) and figure out why the performance went down. Then you could come up with a workable plan to alleviate those. You haven't said what version you are upgrading from so it could be any number of things. There are just way to many variables to consider to expect a solution from a message board.

[JuliaHill]

Thank you.

I appreciate that there are many variables, of which the server version is but one tiny item. Perhaps, to respecify, are there any known pitfalls (or highlights) to be aware of when considering upgrading to Windows Server 2008 R2 that people with considerably more knowledge and experience than myself (a very regular user of the forum, if not a contributer [see 'concerned about asking seemingly ridiculous questions', 'being new to TM1']) can express in reasonably straightforward language?

And to put the issue of server/client speed as more of an aside. We have upgraded from 9.4.1 to 10.1.0, and the drop in speed has been very noticeable since the upgrade, hence concluding that the upgrade may have something to do with it, as the processes and structures have not changed in the meantime.

Or, indeed, to accept fate, upgrade anyway, and deal with whatever pitfalls may arise.

[Paul Segal]

I'm running a number of (x64, 9.5x) servers on Windows 2008 R2 with no problems. More memory and processor power can never hurt, pace licensing and cost issues.

[declanr]

I believe 10.1 onwards will turn Parallel Interaction on as a standard. You may want to look into that as on occasion it can be known to make some operations take longer.

Personally 9 times out of 10 I would say leave parallel interaction on but I of course no nothing about your model and if you were happy not using it in the past you may be happy to not reap its benefits now so it could be worth turning it off and seeing if you notice a difference.

Its also worth noting that 9.4 to 10.1 is a very significant move forward so although we would hope everything just gets better the newer the version you have that is of course not always the case, there could be 100s of different reasons that could have an impact which is why as Tomok stated; your best bet would be to get an experienced consultant to have a look at your system and then they can give you a more focussed response. The brilliance of TM1 is that it is so very flexible but the down side of that is that its quite rare to find a standard answer that fits all scenarios.

[mattgoff]

We have just about managed to upgrade to 10.1.0 (our ICT team helpfully generally leave it to the very small happy band of TM1 end users to sort themselves out. We are not hardcore IT experts (being planners) and we have to tell them what needs to be done. The blind leading the deaf possibly.)

A common problem with TM1 users since it is sold it as if it were Excel, implying that any competent "power user" can figure it out. The reality is that, while it is simpler to administer than other databases, it still requires specialized skills. </preachtothechoir>

Since you're on 10.1.0, it's worth a read of the 10.1.1 release docs to see if any performance PMRs were addressed.

We are wondering how we can most effectively improve our server speed, since we are finding cube loading and process running post-upgrade to be somewhat slower. The TM1 server is currently running MS Server 2003 SP3 (32-bit) on 2GB of RAM with 1 CPU and 20GB of storage. The client end is running Windows 2007.

We are going to ask for more RAM, and ICT also tell us that we could upgrade to MS Server 2008 R2. Having researched it, the reviews are largely very technical (as one would expect) and I find them largely impenetrable (being a non-techie). Does anybody have any straightforward knowledge of the possible pros and cons of upgrading to 2008 R2, and whether or not it might result in quicker usage? I suspect we will have to upgrade eventually anyway since 2003 is getting to be too old to be supported for much longer.

Performance problems are notoriously difficult to solve. If you have budget, I would advise bringing a consultant in to help-- otherwise you're going to spend a lot of time chasing down ghosts. If not, you might want to consider asking IT to provide a partial resource so some expertise can be built. BTW, I say all this as a fellow non-consultant planner-- I just happen to have had a tech career before I switched sides, so I'm predisposed towards self-service (one might argue that I seek it).

Since it appears that Parallel Interaction is enabled by default in 10.1 and since Parallel Interaction does lead to a large increase in server RAM consumption, adding more RAM could well be a solution. Your IT people should be able to tell you if TM1 is swapping to disk. If so, performance would be greatly improved by adding more RAM. If not, you probably won't see much difference.

I'm skeptical that a server OS upgrade is going to lead to any meaningful performance improvement. However, depending on the results of your RAM investigation, you could easily need more than 3GB of RAM and a server upgrade would be required if for nothing more than to go to 64-bit.

Depending on how many users you have, you might benefit from a CPU upgrade. It's been a LONG time since any server-class CPU had a single core, so you're probably running on some pretty old hardware. Between an old CPU and old memory bus speeds, a hardware refresh could have a significant performance boost.

Also - if anybody knows why my TM1 ribbon in Excel now says 'XXX' instead of 'TM1' post-upgrade then that would solve a puzzling mystery. It's all working, but it's just faintly peculiar...

Did the performance issues with the ribbon ever get worked out? I still have my users disable it, but that may be superstition at this point.

Matt

[stephen waters]

The TM1 server is currently running MS Server 2003 SP3 (32-bit) on 2GB of RAM with 1 CPU and 20GB of storage ...........
We are going to ask for more RAM, and ICT also tell us that we could upgrade to MS Server 2008 R2.

Julia,
Your server looks old (ancient?) and underspecified. If so, "upgrading" it to Windows server 2008 could make things even slower and just waste money. Get a new server box with a fast processor and decent amount of RAM. Then, if you are still having problems, start looking at the TM1 specific issues.

[jim wood]

I guess the only general consideration is the change in security between 2003 and 2008 R2. Microsoft have locked a lot more down. The restrictions can cause problems unless you run everything as administrator. Also they have made IIS a lot lighter and secure than it was. The install on 2008 requires features to be added back in for TM1 Web to work. They are pretty much covered in the documentation so as long as you run everything as administrator and swat up on the install documentation before migrating you should be ok,

Jim.