The purpose of this article is to give you some helpful tips to improve the environment that SalesLogix runs in while at the same time piquing your interest on this topic. On Tuesday, June 14th the Heartland SalesLogix Users Group Event – Grilling Burgers and Blazing SalesLogix will address this topic in much more detail. A BBQ lunch begins at 12:00 p.m. and the topic will begin at 1:00 p.m. EST. We will have Sage and Simplesoft consultants providing not just the What you need to do (as in the article) but How to do it. Discover how you can improve SalesLogix speed with navigation and group lookups in this article and at the meeting by fine tuning the database and Web server. I have also included tips to enhance your SalesLogix configurations and performance.
Listed below are some suggestions for optimizing the Windows environment for speeding up SalesLogix. The recommendations are in order of greatest impact to speed up the server, to lesser impact, including items that will take a lot of time. My suggestion is to make each change one a time and measure between changes to determine which item makes the biggest impact. Some of these improvements might need to be long-term projects because they are not short-term fixes and take time to properly implement. The key is to have a baseline test and measure against the test consistently. The Windows environment and SalesLogix configuration adjustments can have a huge impact with the operational results. Always keep the client speed in mind to give them the best experience.
1. Maximize RAM (huge impact and an easy change to make with today’s virtual machines and affordable hardware)
- The more memory, the better (especially with 64 bit environments).
- Don’t rely on RAM alone for optimization, because it may be covering up areas that would be considered a bottleneck.
2. Maximize the database settings (huge impact, see enclosed scripts)
- Back up the database and run base SalesLogix database optimization scripts (30 minutes).
– Back up database before
– See v7.5 DVD media in the database folder for the sql file and run in query analyzer
– back up database afterwards
- Review primary keys, indexing and clustering v. stock database (takes longer to review and implement).
- Check database maintenance jobs (backups, indexing, truncate logs, etc.).
- Run SLXProfiler to review slow queries and diagnose further and optimize (takes longer to review and implement).
3. Browser version and optimizations (high impact)
- Recommend using FireFox 3.x or above v. Internet Explorer 7 or above
- Optimize browser settings
4. Maximize Windows network settings
- Review and adjust services and network settings
– Turn off what can be turned off
- Maximize data throughout
- Defrag hard drives
5. Optimize IIS configurations
- Turn on compression (this is the equivalent of zipping large files before sending them)
- Adjust other IIS settings (turn off logs, separate the application pools, etc.)
6. Work on SalesLogix configurations for optimizations (these items can take a while to implement)
- Reduce unneeded, unrelease and/or bundle and remove older groups (high impact)
- Reduce unneeded, unrelease and/or bundle and remove older plugins (reports, etc.)
- Reduce data/duplicates/archive, etc.
- Optimize customizations (using SLXProfiler, etc.)
7. Adjust firewall network throughput settings
The trick to performance tuning is to make your changes one at a time then monitor the results. Just remember one registry setting, such as disabling, caching can have a tremendous impact on your server. Once you are happy with the results move the configurations and settings from your SalesLogix TEST environment to your PRODUCTION server. Continue to use performance tuning regularly over time because when your database grows and more users are using the Web site things might need to be reviewed again.
Life is like a ten speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.
Charles M. Schulz
If you would like to learn more tips or have a CRM topic you would like us to write about please contact Simplesoft Solutions, Inc. in one of our Cincinnati/Dayton (OH), Charleston (WV), or Charlotte (NC) surrounding area office locations:
Dayton, Ohio Office:
Simplesoft Solutions, Inc.
550 N. Main St. Suite A
Springboro, OH 45066
Phone: (937) 885-1204 x 3204
Fax: (937) 885-3580
sales@simplesoft.net
Ripley, WV Office:
Simplesoft Solutions, Inc.
710 Random Rd.
Ripley, WV 25271
Phone: (304) 521-2387
Fax: (937) 885-3580
sales@simplesoft.net
Charlotte, NC Office:
Simplesoft Solutions, Inc.
3635 Eastover Ridge Drive
Charlotte, NC 28211
Phone: (704) 910-3872
Fax: (937) 885-3580
sales@simplesoft.net
