Slow connection thru VPN

[Jorge Novoa]

Hello everyone!

Maybe you can help me with this matter:

I have my LAN, an Access 2003 application, splitted in front and backend.
The 'server' is winXP Pro
The clients are XP too.
The server user needs to work from home, so he's carrying the pc to his
home.
We have hardware (fortinet) as firewall and other cool stuff, and of
course.. VPN
So the 'remote' pc will connect to our network through it ISP usign our VPN
, and so on... you know the story.
Actually it connects.
The problem is: the connection is too slow, at least for access (.MDB
format).
We dedicate 1 Mbps for the VPN link.
There are only 3 or 4 pcs that connects to this 'server'. Not so much of a
load.
We are doing our best in order to solve this issue, but the connection is
very very, very slow.
Actually it happens to be slower working with access than with other thins
like copy/paste files, or even another application using a paradox database.

Is there any issue with JET or... I don´t know, some kind of trouble with
this type of connection¿? Is access causing this slowliness?

How to solve this?

Please help!!!!

Thanx a lot friends!

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

You might want to read what Albert Kallal has to say at
http://members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal/Wan/Wans.html

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

We dedicate 1 Mbps for the VPN link.

Right, but your el-cheap-o office network is 100 Mbps.

It not a lot of complex math we need here. Lets take out the pen and paper
here.

Lets try to put this into perspective here.

If it takes you 28 minutes to get to work, a 100 times slower = 2800
minutes, or 46 hours.

The factor of 100 times is RATHER a large number?

So, if you going to travel to work, but your choosing something that is 100
times slower, then do you think there going to be a difference in your
travel time? Note that a factor of 100 is far more then the difference then
walking to work then that of driving...

Question, do you think 100 times is going to make a difference?

We are doing our best in order to solve this issue, but the connection is
very very, very slow.

Yes, the connection is slow, but compared to what? To really start any
comparsion here, we need the difference in speed as to what you were
previously comparing the speed to? I mean, where else can we start to break
down this issue?

I am guessing, but your office is a 100 base, or perhaps even a 1000 base.
Either way, you talking about a vpn that is 100 times slower, or even
perahps 1000 times slower (if that's the case, then we are just duck soup).
That is one big grand canyon types of numbers here.

If you experienced any delays in operation of your application on your local
office network (the 100 guy), say 6 seconds to do something, then with 100
times slower, we get

6 x 100 = 600 seconds (that is 10 minutes).

Is there any issue with JET or... I don´t know, some kind of trouble with
this type of connection¿? Is access causing this slowliness?

Well, not really. I would say that a JET database over a lan does stress the
system, but then again "stress" is a relative term, and you have to compare
the performance to other multi-user systems that are shuffling the windows
file network across your VPN now. (or, perhaps you have no comparisons with
anything else? A simple file copy, or other operations is certainly not the
same as a system that must allow multiple users in different locations to
update the same data.....

You might be able to increase the speed of your application by 30, perhaps
40% (by optimizing code). Or, you might be able to purchase more bandwidth,
and double your connection speed (however, without the numbers in the
difference, doubling your bandwidth may still be 50 times too slow!!).

So, you might want to run some basic numbers on the connection speeds you
have when the application runs good, and compare them to the connection
speeds when the application runs slow.

in addtion to the suggeetsions here:

http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal//Wan/Wans.html

You might also consider using SharePoint, especially the "free" edition at

www.officelive.com

If you use the above, then you can link your tables to the SharePoint lists.
The beauty of the above system is you don't need hardware, you need have to
use a vpn, you don't have to open up your company network, and it should
perform very well, even with your 1 base network. Not only is officeLive
free, but it means you not have to purchase SharePoint, or even setup sql
server. note that I only recommend recommend this free 'cloud' solution for
access 2007.

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

you need have to
use a vpn,

Sorry, should read:

you do NOT need to have or setup a vpn....

 

[Jorge Novoa]

Thanks a lot guys

You are very kind. I'll take a look at the whole article.

Once again: thanx!

 

[a a r o n . k e m p f]

Access isn't modern enough to work on a VPN.
but if you upgrade to SQL Server and use ADP-- it works like a charm!~

 

[a a r o n . k e m p f]

I agree.

SharePoint rocks.
For _SOME_ uses.

I just wish it had better scalability, easier installation (for
example, SharePoint doesn't play nice with Reporting Services (*
unless you explicitly use a different port-- which I don't like) until
you get to SQL Server 2008.

I just wish it was a little bit more ironed out.

I was forced to use Access (jet) against SharePoint a couple of years
back.. it was so slow it was mostly unusable-- but a great concept.
It seems to me like MS Is going to need to show a LOT of commitment to
this platform-- for a whole decade-- before I put a lot of weight in
it.