Performance Benchmark

Collect!'s Performance Benchmark utility enables you to test the performance of a computer through several stress tests. This is very useful for finding system bottlenecks when a Server or Workstation seems unusually slow. You can use the results to optimize your system resources so that Collect! processes can run as they should.

The Performance Benchmark utility is available through the Tools, Utilities menu.

The Performance Benchmark utility stress tests:

• CPU operation
• Disk I/O Read and Write
• Advanced memory usage

Results are displayed when the utility has completed all its tests.

Performance Benchmark Results

You should run this utility on your Server when everyone else is signed out of Collect!. You can also use it to test individual workstations.

The Performance Benchmark may take up to half an hour to run, depending on your system. When you first select the Performance Benchmark option, you will see a prompt. You cannot cancel the utility once it starts to run, so you are given the chance to back out before you start.

Run Performance Benchmark Yes/No

Once you select YES to start the tests, you cannot cancel the performance tests.

Technical Notes

When you run the Performance Benchmark, several areas of your PC are tested.

• CPU operation
• Disk I/O Read and Write
• Advanced memory usage

The process will generate/allocate, and write/read a 1GB file called xxx.XXXXXXXX (extension is randomly generated). It will also perform a checksum (SHA512) of this file data to verify its integrity.

The random data generated is done using strong cryptography.

The "Total Time" includes the extra time required to transition between the CPU and disk operation, as well as memory operations.

If these processes take more than two minutes on your Server, this indicates a performance issue. You may want to consider updating your Server, hard drive, memory, or CPU.

Performance Benchmark deletes the temporary file when the testing is finished.

Benchmark Tool - External

Performance benchmarking is also available as a Win32 executable shipped with Collect!. You can simply double-click the benchmark.exe in your Collect\bin folder to run all the stress tests in the Performance Benchmark. Results are displayed after the tests are completed.

This external utility does not display its progress while running. Only click once to start the tool. If you start more than one instance, your numbers will be wrong!

Summary

The Performance Benchmark is intended for use when a user reports "It's slow." Often, it is not possible to find the real cause of the slowdown and Collect! performance, in general, is incorrectly suspected. Using this useful utility, users have discovered cases where hardware was not configured optimally, for instance, and Collect! performance was downgraded as a result. Once the hardware was configured properly, with help from the supplier, Collect! processes performed without delays.

When someone tells you, "my Collect! is slow," now you can run the Performance Benchmark. This utility uses 1G memory, tests CPU by creating 1G of random data. It writes to disk, reads back into memory, testing your disk I/O for reads and writes.

If these processes take more than two minutes on your Server, this indicates a performance issue.

Performance Benchmark empowers you to optimize your PCs so that Collect! processes can run without being hampered by unrelated hardware and system configuration issues.