EP 8.3 slow performance for some users in planning cube

[wentriken]

We have a model set up on our staging server that we want to get out to the world, but some users are having a terrible performance experience.

The slowness occurs when switching between tabs, or when saving if you did not switch tabs first.

We have two users with identical hardware:
* User A: WinXP, antivirus disabled, switching tabs takes 20 seconds
* Useb B: Win7, antivirus disables, switching tabs takes 3 minutes 30 seconds

Any advice appreciated.

Thank you,
Will

[ericlfg]

Hi Will,

Couple of things:

1. What version of Planning is being used?
2. Both userA and userB are opening the exact same e-list item or node?
3. Both users are running 32 bit Operating systems?
4. Do you have any other XP and Win7 systems that could be used to increase the sample size and answer the question if all Win7 systems are slower than XP?

As a test, have userA sign onto userB's system and attempt to open their normal node that they would open on their XP system and vice-versa, have userB sign onto userA's system and open the node they normally would open on their Win7 system.  In addition with question 4 above we may be able to confirm if it's a problem with only userB's system or all win7 systems.

[wentriken]

Hi Eric,

1. This is Planning 8.3
2. We are opening the same e-List item (we're both administrators)
3. WinXP is running 32-bit and Win7 is 64-bit (although we both have 32-bit Internet Explorer version 8)
4. We are scheduling meetings over the week to meet with users and test performance and see if it is related to Win7. Any ideas of what else to look for while we are doing that?

Thank you,
Will

[skinners666]

There  was around that release a defect where the client ran very slowly on 64 bit systems. I cant quite remember at what point that was addressed.

[ericlfg]

Hey Will,

Sounds like you're going to be going through the testing I would do throughout the week.  You need to ensure that the behavior is identical on all of your Windows 7 64 bit machines and XP systems and take it from there.  I don't have anything else to suggest until this major variable is pinned down.

I will point out, however, that the 8.3 version of planning is not supported with Windows 7 for admin or client components.  While you're definitely able to continue forward, there may be unknown performance issues with the classic client (Active X contributor web client) on 64 bit Windows 7 systems that haven't been identified or tested.

Eric

[skinners666]

The 64 bit issue was only resolved in the 10.1 stream. In 8.4 you could use the following workaround (on the client):-

Set this registry key

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cognos\Planning84\JCE\PagingService]
"MemoryThreshold"=dword:1f400000

Obviously the key will be slightly different on an 83 system. Let us know how you get on.

[wentriken]

Thank you, we have followed up and found that 64 bits systems were slower. We have been disallowed from editing the registry on user systems for this application but it did help to have the problem identified.

[jeffowentn]

Does anyone know if this performance issue also exists for 8.4.1 FP3 - BI/FP2 - Planning?  Our desktop group is starting a project to look at moving our PC's to Windows 7...

[wentriken]

Just to document, we have upgraded to Planning 10.1 and the system works well on 64bit.