Thanks for replying to this. Sorry it took me a while to send a thank you, but your time and effort to reply to this was appreciated!
-- John


>>Hey FoxFolx!
>>
>>I've got a question on the situation with network traffic when it comes to VFP tables. We have set up calls to a large table on a network server to utilize minimalize database calls (i.e. UPDATE pttran SET status = 1 WHERE id = 12345). However at one company in particular that really bangs on the system with many workstations, some system utilities that take 2-3 minutes on a local system are taking 30 minutes to run.
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>>My question is this: if the example above were in pure SPT to a SQL table, it would truly be minimal, but is it actually passing lots of data back and forth in VFP? I was re-reading Chuck Urwiler's VFP C/S book and he spoke of how sometimes using a remote connection in such a situation might be better. Do you folks agree?
>>
>>How about a stored procedure inside the VFP database? Would passing a call to that keep everything on the server?
>>
>>I'm baffled about how to rectify this situation. I'd love to hear those who know more than me on this subject.
>
>It sounds to me like the problem is that the app is slow, not necessarily due to excessive network traffic. If there's a heavily loaded network running a VFP app, it needs to be properly configured and reliable. For example:
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>- is antivirus on both the server and workstations configured so that real-time scanning does not scan VFP executables, data files or temp files/folders?
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>- Does the network have reliable Cat5e or better cabling, and gigabit switches and workstation NICs? Gigabit equipment is incredibly cheap these days
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>- Are DNS and WINS configured properly for all servers/workstations?
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>- Has a network engineer analyzed the network traffic? Sometimes you discover things like network printers that have lots of unnecessary protocols enabled such as AppleTalk, Novell IPX/SPX etc. This all adds network overhead and reduces performance
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>If the client's VFP data server has a 100Mbit NIC, then yes, that's going to be a bottleneck on a loaded network. It'll be a lot cheaper to upgrade that to a gigabit NIC than any software updates you could do.