Server Check Up

Purpose

The purpose of this document is to guide you in gathering details about the server's environment in order to identify problems with infrastructure that negatively impact Collect! related operations. Often users have insufficient disk space or rogue processes slowing their computers down. Other times you may have multiple copies of Collect! cluttering up your drives. With the following analysis we want to help you optimize performance.

Disk Drive Free Space

Check the current free space on the Server’s operating system drive and Collect! data drive (if different):

• less than 10% free - fail
• less than 50% free - warning
• over 50% free - pass

If your page file is on a drive with low space, this will impact performance.

Disk Drive Fragmentation

Check how heavily fragmented the drive is especially the drive Collect! is installed on and the drive Windows is running from:

• Windows defrag says a defrag is needed - fail
• Windows defrag does not say defrag needed but significant fragmentation is visible - warning
• little or no fragmentation - pass

Task Manager

Review , CPU, RAM, and Processes:

• CPU - over 50% busy - fail
• RAM - less than 1GB free - fail
• Processes - watch running processes to see who is using the CPU
• processes using 70% or more CPU - fail
• processes using 50% or more CPU - warning
• processes using less than 50% CPU - pass

Operating System

At present, Collect! only runs on Windows. Due to Microsoft's security patching, we recommend that you be on the latest version of Windows:

• Windows 7 or older OR Windows Server 2008 or older - fail
• Windows 8 OR Windows Server 2012 - warning
• Windows 10 or newer OR Windows Server 2016 or newer - pass

Networking

How you setup your network is your call, based on your office setup. We typically recommend wired network over wireless, just for data integrity.

Whether wired or not, we recommend that you check the following periodically:

• loose cables on workstations, servers, switches, firewalls, and modems that are not wireless
• workstation ping for packet loss (may indication cable deterioration or poor wireless signal)
• power settings that turn off network cards or put computer to sleep

We do not recommend the use of Laptops as closing the lid while the application is still running will cause SQL Disconnect messages.

Database

Microsoft has a variety of configurations for the database. The things to check below are for a basic installation. If you utilize more of the MS features, then you will need to check those also. The main thing to check is the Database Recovery Model:

• Full requires that you periodically shrink files after taking snapshots - warning
• Simple is the easiest with our recovery recommendations - pass

Database health needs to be checked periodically. In the Collect!\bin folder is a file called CheckSQL.bat. When run, it will create a file called check.repair:

• greater than 0 KB - fail, restore from last clean backup
• equal to 0 KB - pass

Backup

Backups are important and should be tested periodically. Here are some things to check for:

• no backup - fail
• backup in place, but doesn't include the Collect! folder - fail
• backup in place, but the database is backed up live or improperly - fail
• backup in place and the database is backed up as per one of the options described on the Help page: How to Backup Collect! - pass
• backup restoration tested - super pass