Quickbooks multi-user and gigabit networks

[skyking]

We constructed a new wire plant and phone system for a small business client.
They'll be moving in to the new offices this week.
They have complained about quickbooks multi-user slowness, a very common complaint among QB users.
I took a look at their "network" in the old office, and noted that they had a 10baseT hub.
They have a fairly modern machine with a gig of ram hosting the QB file.
I know that they'll see an improvement going to 100 on the network, but I wonder if it warrants the extra expense to move them to gigabit now. Currently they have 4 computers and a network printer.
They share no other application nor do they push other files over the network. It will be primarily for QB, printing, and sharing a DSL connection.
What do you think, get 4 nics and an 8 port gig switch, or keep it a 100 network?
I will be replacing that intel 10baseT hub regardless.

 

[JRock]

This has always been a problem with QuickBooks. As the size of the database increases performance starts to snowball. QuickBooks is by no means an "Enterprise" solution.

My opinion:

When setting up newer offices ALWAYS go with the newest technology possible. This way when the time comes that they ask you change something you don't have to say "well your going to have to buy this and that" because your usually going to get "well why didn't we already have that in place" as a response.

My conclusion:

Go with gig switching as there is really NO reason not to in a small office environment. It's relatively affordable.

If they wont migrate away from QuickBooks (odds are they won't because Enterprise Accounting software could cost as much as a nice Italian sports car) just let it be known to them that you did your best to address the issue on the networking side and that the "slowness" is do to the software limitations.

 

[nweaver]

I would wire for gig, and put any NEW equipment in at gig, but I don't think I would change out workstation NIC's, unless they are very new. I would just wait the 12-18 month upgrade cycle and go from there.

 

[Tazanator]

getting a gig switch is retarded. The IDE interface only allows 133mbps look at the IDE spec's, hell look at the bus speed specs to the NIC (pci bus speed) the cat5 does 350mhz 100mb now look at what you are transfering from the best IDE hdd's are only 133. SATA doesn't even do 1 gig transfers, the only way to see 1 gig transfers is from the high end servers RAM to the network and if it's more than a few mb the switchs and NIC's buffers WILL over flow.

Save the money buy a 100mb system and some NAS boxes.

 

[JRock]

Originally posted by: Tazanator
getting a gig switch is retarded. The IDE interface only allows 133mbps look at the IDE spec's, hell look at the bus speed specs to the NIC (pci bus speed) the cat5 does 350mhz 100mb now look at what you are transfering from the best IDE hdd's are only 133. SATA doesn't even do 1 gig transfers, the only way to see 1 gig transfers is from the high end servers RAM to the network and if it's more than a few mb the switchs and NIC's buffers WILL over flow.

Save the money buy a 100mb system and some NAS boxes.

I think you are confusing Mbps with MBps and Gbps with GBps...

 

[nweaver]

Not to mention this could be running on a decent enterprise-class disk subsystem (i.e. SCSI raid 5)

 

[JackMDS]

Not a dramatic change, it would improve the speed some what. The problem is more QB itself rather than the Network.

:sun:

 

[skyking]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
Not a dramatic change, it would improve the speed some what. The problem is more QB itself rather than the Network.

:sun:

That's for sure, Jack. It is by no means at the level of peachtree, for instance. Folks learn QB and won't move away from it, however.
I installed CAT6 everything, as usual. I'll get a decent unmanaged gigabit 16 port switch and a pair of nics for the computer hosting the file, and the client that acesses that file the most.
Thanks all

EDIT: I have not witnessed th accounting operations, but I would not be surprised to find some operational problems that tend to compound QB's crappiness. I will advise them on all the tricks I know to make it bearable.

 

[spidey07]

I would. This is old school file sharing type application.

The more bandwidth the better.

the measely few hundred bucks you would save are no reason not to.

 

[Chunkee]

what about setting up a terminal server?

jC

 

[JRock]

Originally posted by: Chunkee
what about setting up a terminal server?

jC

Terminal Server Licensing is very expensive. One client I setup needed access to access Quick Books from home so I installed the application locally on the Domain Controller (the only server they have which is for basic file sharing and printing) so he could access it from home. Works well but if he forgets to logout it could be a problem without another server on the domain to manage TS clients.

edit: TS for remote administration does not require any additional licensing.

 

[skyking]

Terminal server would be way too much sticker shock for this owner. I'll go gigbit though. It will be less than $200.

 

[Lifted]

Originally posted by: JRock

Originally posted by: Chunkee
what about setting up a terminal server?

jC

Terminal Server Licensing is very expensive. One client I setup needed access to access Quick Books from home so I installed the application locally on the Domain Controller (the only server they have which is for basic file sharing and printing) so he could access it from home. Works well but if he forgets to logout it could be a problem without another server on the domain to manage TS clients.

edit: TS for remote administration does not require any additional licensing.

You could always show him how to telnet in from another remote desktop session on the network, or even from his home desktop if you're using a VPN, and logoff the session. No need for a TS client manager.

 

[Garion]

Originally posted by: skyking
Terminal server would be way too much sticker shock for this owner. I'll go gigbit though. It will be less than $200.

Have you done any analysis to determine if gigabit will help? You can always use Ethereal on a machine to capture the traffic and then look at some of the data transfer graphs to look at how much bandwidth is actually going across the wire.

It is possible that there are some shared database activities that are causing the problem (like locking records) and it has nothing to do with the performance on the network.

- G

 

[skyking]

I'll have the opportunity to give that a try, since I will be loaning them a 10/100 switch tomorrow. They will get a new switch though, the 10baseT hub has to go

 

[blemoine]

What is the size of your QB file. i had a client that had a 200 MB QB file. we setup a server with P4 3.2 GHZ HT, 1 GB Ram and 2 SATA Drives Stripped. It was a lot faster but even using quickbooks directly from that server was slow. Quickbooks is made for a very small business and nothing more. good luck though

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: blemoine
What is the size of your QB file. i had a client that had a 200 MB QB file. we setup a server with P4 3.2 GHZ HT, 1 GB Ram and 2 SATA Drives Stripped. It was a lot faster but even using quickbooks directly from that server was slow. Quickbooks is made for a very small business and nothing more. good luck though

heh, I forgot about all the times I've worked with companies that simply had software that simply wouldn't work well with what they wanted to do no matter how much hardware you throw at it.