Slow performance

[fschnell]

We have Alfresco 2.2E installed and uploaded 120,000 documents residing in a hierarchy of a handfull (maybe 100) spaces. Access via CIFS or the webinterface is fast on the first level showing about 15 spaces. From there opening a space with 200 documents takes about 10 seconds, with 500 documents >30 seconds and every space with more than that is inaccessible. There are 150 LDAP users defined and the backend database on a separate server is Oracle 9. I got the recommendation not to store more than 200 documents in a space/folder as performance after that would massively decrease.

As I do not know where to start analysing and what values would be normal or common, can others please post access times for folders with various amounts of documents, e.g. 100 files, 200 files, 500 files and a 1000 files; what database is used and whether it is on a separate server.

Thanks for your help
Frank

[leonk]

It's a shame that Alfresco that pretends to be a major Sharepoint competitor is not investing time to create good optimization manuals like Atlassian have.

There are number of resources on Alfresco Network. However, these are unfortunately for Enterprise customers. Kind of like JBoss in the early days. Software is free, but not the documentation.

Ainga

Hmm, interesting.
I didn't know that. I don't think it's a smart move.
First they need to build a solid community around this product, even dedicating a couple of their engineers to help community ver. implementations and really contribute to support forums (creating howtos, etc.). Sort of what Ubuntu is doing or what's happening with CentOS and RHEL.

After all, enterprises will always go after a supported version and small and medium businesses will go for mostly free solutions (if they don't have a budget…).

But by really supporting community version they will build followers and create a positive buzz which is not happening now.

For example, we're in our University trying to give Alfresco a fair go and see if people would like it.
If they liked it we would definitely by a license but this is a process that can take 1-2 year in Uni.

But i feel like this product is really raw and not ready for an enterprise (Community version).
Start investing in Community ver. in the same way you do for Enterprise and you'll see the result.

[mrogers]

I do agree with you, I think

But what do you mean by "Raw"?

[leonk]

Hi,

When I say "raw" I mean not ready to be embraced by community at large because it's just not stable enough, not supported enough, pretty slow etc……
Not enough "knowledge database" or professionals dealing or willing to deal with Alfresco just because of this cocky attitude (or policy) - "take it or leave it - `buy it`" from Alfresco.

I think that most big players (except may be "Microsoft") understand now that if you want community to contribute back to your project you have to contribute to community all the time :0)
Those using "free" versions usually contribute by testing your software, creating tickets in JIRA/Bugzilla, producing workarounds etc., making your product better fruits of which Enterprise users will enjoy later.

Look what's happening to a great iFolder project that Novell decided to throw to Community as an open source project but virtually halting any support (i.e. assigning software developers to the project, creating docs, assigning software engineers to resolve issues on forums, etc.). iFolder project is dying…..
People try it, something doesn't work, people go to forums and lists and there is no one really to support them and they just go away.

No one will go and buy Enterprise version if they had a bad experience with community one!

My 5c

[mrogers]

Thank you.

[rmacian]

Hi there,

We have experience with some customers having performance problems. First of all you have to think about architecture.

If you have performance problems it's a MUST to have the database on a separate server. Are you using local disks for the repository ?

Alfresco doesn't do very well with a lot of spaces or content onto the same space. By default you will begin to have problems if there are more than 1000 objects at the same level (spaces or documents).

If you are running on 2.X you will have problems with CPU at 100% sometimes, isn't it? there have been some improvements to CIFS performance until version 3.2 SP2. So my recommendation w.ould be to upgrade if its possible. A minor tune would consist in add some parameters to the JVM. I say minor one because for large amount of users is best bet for cpu than memory:

http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/JVM_Tuning#JVM_Memory_and_CPU_Hardware_for_multiple_users

Try this tune for the JVM (valid for JDK 1.6), avoid to do copy&paste because some time causes problems:

‐server ‐Xms1G ‐Xmx1G ‐XXermSize=192m ‐XX:MaxPermSize=192m ‐
XX:NewRatio=2 ‐XX:+UseParNewGC ‐XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC ‐
XX:+CMSParallelRemarkEnabled ‐XX:CMSInitiatingOccupancyFraction=80 ‐
Dsun.rmi.dgc.client.gcInterval=3600000 ‐Dsun.rmi.dgc.server.gcInterval=3600000
‐Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote=true ‐Djava.io.tmpdir=/dev/shm

[fluca1978]

I think that most big players (except may be "Microsoft") understand now that if you want community to contribute back to your project you have to contribute to community all the time :0)
Those using "free" versions usually contribute by testing your software, creating tickets in JIRA/Bugzilla, producing workarounds etc., making your product better fruits of which Enterprise users will enjoy later.

No one will go and buy Enterprise version if they had a bad experience with community one!

I admit I'm really new to Alfresco, but having participated in other community projects, it seems to me there is a lack in the way the community is managed. The community does not seem to be interested in solving the problems users have. That's my rush impression, and I hope I get it wrong. I'm sure Alfresco is a great ECM, but maybe a little boost on the community will make it even greater.

[leonk]

Look,

I do understand that this is Alfresco's business model and of course you they have to make money but, take this issue for example - https://issues.alfresco.com/jira/browse/ALF-5190 (Tomcat Crashes randomly in Share Application).

This is THE critical issue. Alfresco shuts itself completely while trying to render simple .pdf file.

It is fixed for  Enterprise 3.4.0/3.4.1 versions but not for Community ver. 3.4.d yet (which is the latest for now).

And hey, I've read some similar thread on this forum where Alfresco engineers say basically - "What the heck do you want? You getting our software for free! Don't expect Community version to be as good as Enterprise!!!"
Fair enough I say, but I believe that even Alfresco guys do not want to release a crappy version of "Community".

You have a policy that won't provide the same features to Community version as to Enterprise in the timely manner - fair enough,
but provuiding major stability and security fixes to both Community and Enterprise in the same time is PARAMOUNT!

Cheers,
L

[mikeh]

https://issues.alfresco.com/jira/browse/ALF-5190 (Tomcat Crashes randomly in Share Application).

This is THE critical issue. Alfresco shuts itself completely while trying to render simple .pdf file.

It is fixed for  Enterprise 3.4.0/3.4.1 versions but not for Community ver. 3.4.d yet (which is the latest for now).

I absolutely agree that needs to be addressed urgently. I will try to find out why this issue has not been addressed in the Community release yet. Clearly it should have been for two reasons:

1. The JVM can be crashed simply by uploading a PDF
2. it was originally raised as a Community issue

The fact that it was originally raised by a Community member should have meant the fix was committed back to HEAD as soon as possible. Obviously something's gone wrong with our process there - I will find out what that is.

And hey, I've read some similar thread on this forum where Alfresco engineers say basically - "What the heck do you want? You getting our software for free! Don't expect Community version to be as good as Enterprise!!!"

I hope this is a case of you interpreting a post incorrectly, as that is definitely NOT the attitude held by Alfresco engineers. Could you let me know by Private Message where you've read that please?

Thanks and apologies for the frustration you're clearly experiencing,
Mike

[leonk]

Thanks for your reply Mike

What I'm saying is that may be it would be a GOOD idea to merge CRITICAL bugs into both version at the same time or at least provide users with patches so they would be able to do it by themselves. But this probably will lead to changes in your workflow processes.

I don't remember the correct thread's URL (It might be this one http://forums.alfresco.com/en/viewtopic.php?t=8993 but I'm not sure). Anyway it might be my perception from those discussions and I'm wrong here.

[danieldesmond]

I am encounter the same issue. Alfresco crush when I tried to render PDF.
Still waiting update for this issue.