Slow portal

[gbuscher]

I have installed Cognos 11.0.5 on Windows Server 2012 with IIS.  When someone connects to http://cognosserver/ibmcognos/bi/?perspective=home it can take 30 seconds to a minute for the home page to render.  It just sits at a blank screen, making users think the page is broken.  After the page renders, opening menus like Team Content are unresponsive.  If there are a lot of reports in the menu it takes a very long time > 60 seconds.  I was told this is a know problem from a consultant, but I can't find any information on the web and IBM hasn't responded to the support ticket.

[MFGF]

I have installed Cognos 11.0.5 on Windows Server 2012 with IIS.  When someone connects to http://cognosserver/ibmcognos/bi/?perspective=home it can take 30 seconds to a minute for the home page to render.  It just sits at a blank screen, making users think the page is broken.  After the page renders, opening menus like Team Content are unresponsive.  If there are a lot of reports in the menu it takes a very long time > 60 seconds.  I was told this is a know problem from a consultant, but I can't find any information on the web and IBM hasn't responded to the support ticket.

It's possible this could be caused by the URL rewrite rules in IIS being slow? Have you tried accessing Cognos Analytics using the servlet gateway rather than IIS? What is performance like if you try this?

Cheers!

MF.

[gbuscher]

Hi MFGF,
Thanks for the reply.  I just tried
http://cognosserver:9300/p2pd/servlet/dispatch. It brings up the logon page very quickly, then redirects to
http://bisawscgappr03:9300/p2pd/bi/ where I get a java error Error 404: java.io.FileNotFoundException: SRVE0190E: File not found: /bi/.
I then tried
http://cognoserver:9300/bi/v1/disp.  It also brings up the logon quickly, but then responds the same way as the default URL.

[MFGF]

Hi MFGF,
Thanks for the reply.  I just tried
http://cognosserver:9300/p2pd/servlet/dispatch. It brings up the logon page very quickly, then redirects to
http://bisawscgappr03:9300/p2pd/bi/ where I get a java error Error 404: java.io.FileNotFoundException: SRVE0190E: File not found: /bi/.
I then tried
http://cognoserver:9300/bi/v1/disp.  It also brings up the logon quickly, but then responds the same way as the default URL.

Hi,

The servlet gateway main URL is http://cognoserver:9300/bi

Have you tried that?

MF.

[gbuscher]

Hi,

That URL works, but with the same results.  For example I selected team content>sales folder.  This folder has 15 reports and to 32 seconds to display.

[MFGF]

Hi,

That URL works, but with the same results.  For example I selected team content>sales folder.  This folder has 15 reports and to 32 seconds to display.

Hmmmm. If we're sure it's not rewriting the URL to point to an IIS virtual directory, then my next guess would be a hugely bloated content store database. Is this a new install with a new, clean content store, or is it an old content store that is being re-used?

MF.

[gbuscher]

It is an import of our content store from Cognos 10.2.1 environments.  The DB size is 2.93 GB.  In 10.2.1 the interface is very responsive. 
I try to keep the number of items in any menu to <30.  Team Content's first menu has 16 sub folders and no reports.  It takes 20 to 30 seconds to display.
On the initial load, after the first time, it is responsive.  My guess is that images are being cached on the first hit.  The menus are the big issue because they stay slow.
Some of my troubleshooting steps.
I have Cognos 11 on 3 different servers 11.0.5 on 2 and 11.0 on the other one.  They all have their own windows servers and databases. 
I have tested with IE(11.0.43) and Chrome(59.0.3071.115), both using the server (trying to eliminate network traffic) and from my computer.
I am going to put 11.0.6 on my 11.0 system to see if that is any better.
The one thing they all have in common is the content store has been imported from their 10.2.1 equivalents (dev, test and prod).  All of these are very similar in the number of reports and folder structure, so if that DB size is an issue than it could be the issue for all 3.

[MFGF]

It is an import of our content store from Cognos 10.2.1 environments.  The DB size is 2.93 GB.  In 10.2.1 the interface is very responsive. 
I try to keep the number of items in any menu to <30.  Team Content's first menu has 16 sub folders and no reports.  It takes 20 to 30 seconds to display.
On the initial load, after the first time, it is responsive.  My guess is that images are being cached on the first hit.  The menus are the big issue because they stay slow.
Some of my troubleshooting steps.
I have Cognos 11 on 3 different servers 11.0.5 on 2 and 11.0 on the other one.  They all have their own windows servers and databases. 
I have tested with IE(11.0.43) and Chrome(59.0.3071.115), both using the server (trying to eliminate network traffic) and from my computer.
I am going to put 11.0.6 on my 11.0 system to see if that is any better.
The one thing they all have in common is the content store has been imported from their 10.2.1 equivalents (dev, test and prod).  All of these are very similar in the number of reports and folder structure, so if that DB size is an issue than it could be the issue for all 3.

Wow! 3Gb? What is taking up so much space in there? How many millions of reports do you have? :)

There's an easy way to validate this is the issue. Create a new, empty content store and point CA at it. Once it's started, do a small export of say three or four folders from 10.2.1 and import this. If performance flies, you've proved it's the massive amount of content. Then you'd need to figure out what is taking up all the space. Are your storing lots of saved report outputs with lots of saved versions?

MF.

MF.

[gbuscher]

For testing I built a new 11.0.5 system with an empty content store.  Still windows 2012 and IIS.  With the empty content store, I just started folders team content.  When I hit 15 folders, it took 9 seconds to display that menu.  I tested from both the standard URL and the servlet URL, with the same results.

[MFGF]

For testing I built a new 11.0.5 system with an empty content store.  Still windows 2012 and IIS.  With the empty content store, I just started folders team content.  When I hit 15 folders, it took 9 seconds to display that menu.  I tested from both the standard URL and the servlet URL, with the same results.

So what is in your content store now? Anything? If you loaded all of Team Content, would that make it huge again?

If your content store is very small and you're still seeing poor response times, then it's not the content store I'll wager. What spec server are you installing on (ie cpu cores and memory)? Have you tried an install of CA without doing anything to set up IIS or mess with the rewrite rules?

Cheers!

MF.

[gbuscher]

Overnight I was able to get some different tests done and this is what I have found.
With no one else on the system, the menus appear quickly.  One folder has 8 items and was instant another (our worst case) has 197 items and it showed in 2 seconds.
With 16 people on the system the folder with 8 items now takes 7 seconds and the one with 197 takes 1 minute 22 seconds.
This is telling me that I have some memory or multi user configuration messed up.  I am using the same memory, cpu, OS, and Java size (4gb) as Cognos my Cognos 10.2.1 setup.  All of the folders are very responsive on 10.2.1.
When I tested the 11.0.6 install yesterday, it was only me and an empty content store, so I am baffled as to why it was responding slow.  Today with only me, it is responsive.

Thank you for all your suggestions MFGF.