NAV 2009 - limitations on users?

senna

I am eagerly anticipating the NAV09 release and am currently trying to establish if there are any limitations on the amount of users you can have on a single database? I have resourced the NAV09 partner material and the recent Resource Kit released but am unable to find anything to document this.

I am needing to find out due to a possible merging of companies all with a single database in NAV 4.03 that will be upgraded to one single database in NAV09, with multiple co's. Of course this will increase the user base so am just trying to establish any limits or guidelines?

any info greatly appreciated

ara3n

It's not about number of people but the amount of transaction that get posted and how often they will lock each other.

David_Singleton

The nuymebr of users for the RTC will be the same as for the Classic client, that will not change.

In terms of the Middle tier. One middle tier can handle 65 RTC Clients.

PS: RTC = Role Tailored Client, so "RTC Client" = Role Tailored Client Client. I heard that a lot the last two days, and I am sure I am going to grow to hate it.

ara3n

David Singleton wrote:

The nuymebr of users for the RTC will be the same as for the Classic client, that will not change.

In terms of the Middle tier. One middle tier can handle 65 RTC Clients.

PS: RTC = Role Tailored Client, so "RTC Client" = Role Tailored Client Client. I heard that a lot the last two days, and I am sure I am going to grow to hate it.

The 65 RTC users, where did you hear/ read that?

From what I read it's between 30 and 40 users.

senna

Thanks for the replies so far. Couple more points if I can make them here...

Surely there is capability to have more than 30/40 users on a NAV2009/SQL environment? especially considering i work with databases with upto 100 users at present (*ok not all using it at the same time) and also on a c/side native client??

The RTC logic is fine, because lots of users will be pre-determined by the same role , it's more the volume of users and the restrictions there might be with having a larger user base. (i.e upto 200)/

Thanks (again) for anyone who can share their views

ara3n

yes you can have more users with RTC but have to create new service tier and split the users to which service tier they connect.

kine

Main "shift" with the Service tier is, that the data processing can be done on some backbone system, which is connected e.g. 1Gbps line to the server, and you do not need to transfer all the data over some 100Mbps line to the client PC and back... This is the main PRO which can save some time. But it doesn't changing anything around how the communication is done and how much users can connect.

David_Singleton

ara3n wrote:

The 65 RTC users, where did you hear/ read that?

From what I read it's between 30 and 40 users.

Kim Ibfelt stated this during the Ask The Experts session at Convergence.

David_Singleton

senna wrote:

Surely there is capability to have more than 30/40 users on a NAV2009/SQL environment? especially considering i work with databases with upto 100 users at present (*ok not all using it at the same time) and also on a c/side native client??

Right at the very beginning when the Middle tier was announced, (so quite a while back) the NAV PG stated that the middle tier would not increase the scalability of NAV, (at least in the first release, and no commitment that it would for the next release). They also stated that a core objective of the first release was that the RTC with the service tier would at least provide the same level of scalability as the current version (meaning that 2009 RTC should scale the same as 5.00SP1 in my understanding).

There was a lot of confusion about this in the community, and for various reasons it was not possible to set right all the false rumors that went out there.

But the clear position stated on Thursday, was that users should expect similar performance from both architectures, but keep in mind that you will need multiple service tiers to reach this level.

ara3n

edit

ara3n

David Singleton wrote:

ara3n wrote:

The 65 RTC users, where did you hear/ read that?

From what I read it's between 30 and 40 users.

Kim Ibfelt stated this during the Ask The Experts session at Convergence.

Did he mention what kind of hardware would be able to handle 65 users?

How much memory, and CPU's, 64 bit or 32 bit OS?

Dave_Cintron

What I've heard:
SQL and Windows Server 2008 can be 64 bit. NAV Service Tier is 32 bit, will be 64 bit in future, possibly in SP1 release. There is no limit to number of service tiers you can run for the single purchase price.

What I'm guessing:
NAV Service tiers properly configured will increase scalability now, and even more so in the future.

freddy.dk

You are right.

I only want to state that you should not expect 64bit in SP1 - in fact I can almost promise you that it is NOT going to happen. (always easier to state what doesn't come, than what comes :? )

Jut

By the way, can we expect the SP1 to be another technical upgrade or are this time also more functional changes of Base NAV planned? I just was thinking what the base NAV programmers have done since NAV 5 SP1

David_Singleton

ara3n wrote:

Did he mention what kind of hardware would be able to handle 65 users?

How much memory, and CPU's, 64 bit or 32 bit OS?

No he didn't, but Freddy was sitting right next to him in the ATE session, so Freddy maybe you can comment more on what hardware we need to hit the 65 users.

freddy.dk

Got me there David :?

Kim stated that it depends on the work that people are doing, and I am afraid to say, that I heard the number 65 for the first time during that session as well, but I know the pef. team in Denmark are running test of different kinds - so that is probably where the number comes from.

Anyway - the important things with setting up a service tier are

Windows Server 32bit with 8GB of memory (So that the servicetier can get access to ~4GB of its own)
GB network connection between Service Tier and SQL Server
Don't run SQL Server on the Service Tier
Don't run NAS on the Service Tier
Don't run Exchange - well don't run any other service applications than the Service Tier.
You could consider putting Web Services on a different machine if you use Web Servcies (although this shouldn't be necessary)

This is the recommendations I have heard and read - the reason for going 32bit is that you don't want a 64bit OS when its primary application is 32bit, whether Hyper-V changes anythng on that, I don't know.

I have just bought myself a beefy 64bit machine as a Servcie Tier machine - in order to play around with Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and how that works.

David_Singleton

I think what Kim did was a bold move, and in my opinion was a very good move.

In this industry we often get scared of numbers that linger on, 640k for example.

but right now,drawing a line in the sand is a critical first step for us to start understanding the limitations of NAV. Last week we had an equation with a huge number of variables, and no one knew where to start so as to get a solution to the equation.

"how many users? what activity do they do? what SQL server? bandwidth? concurrent vs named? Terminal services vs local users? it goes on and on.

Now we have the first constant.

We know that someone has run 65 users on a middle tier. We don't know the details, but we have a starting point. So I can now set up a profile for 65 users, max out the hardware, and see just what level of activity they can do. then I can work out the number of active users to the number of concurrent users on that hardware. then I can work out (step by step) what hardware changes push me to 66, 67 or 70 users. or I can see how far I can lower hardware if I only need 55 users.

Drawing a line in the sand was the first important step, and its great the someone had the guts to just get this moving along and put the political BS aside.

Tvis

Interesting with the view on why to go with a 32 bit OS...

Windows Server 32bit with 8GB of memory (So that the servicetier can get access to ~4GB of its own)

the reason for going 32bit is that you don't want a 64bit OS when its primary application is 32bit, whether Hyper-V changes anythng on that, I don't know.

So does that mean the general recommendation is to not use 64 bit Windows Server but go with the 32 bit --> also with with the older versions of NAV?

kine

Of course, problem is, that Windows 2008 are "Last 32bit OS". It means any future versions will be only 64bit thus the NAV is not optimal from long time period point of view... ;-) But I hope that MS will do something around that... [-o<

freddy.dk

SQL Server can easily run 64bit - also for the older versions.
For clients, I guess it doesn't matter as much as with the servicetier - it all depends on the computers main job - IMO.

Reg. 64bit and future - rest asure that we are working on moving NAV to a fully managed platform, enabling us to take advantage of 64bit, unicode and a lot of other things.

tedcjohnston

Would really be interested in seeing feedback on service layer bottlenecks. I'm planning a 2009 upgrade. Would the service tier use more CPU/Memory/network/disk. I would assume that disk should not be an issue with enough memory. Specifically I'm wondering if the service tier could be virtualized to run multiple 32 bit instances on a big 64bit server. Load the server with RAM, CPUs, and NICs then give each service instance what it needs. Would use up much less space in the rack.

I know I'll have to start out with two service tiers as we run across two timezones and the service tier only supports one timezone across all client connections (according to release notes).

freddy.dk

I just bought a beefy service tier to test the virtualization scenario you are talking about.

reg. timezone - you are right - Client needs to be running same timezone as the service tier.

David_Singleton

freddy.dk wrote:

I just bought a beefy service tier to test the virtualization scenario you are talking about.

reg. timezone - you are right - Client needs to be running same timezone as the service tier.

What will be interesting is the results with Hyper-v and multiple service tiers and multiple Terminal servers running on one piece of hardware.

DenSter

tedcjohnston wrote:

Specifically I'm wondering if the service tier could be virtualized to run multiple 32 bit instances on a big 64bit server

I think this is a scenario that many companies are going to implement, regardless of the official general recommendations against virtualization. I would be interested in hearing about benchmark testing that MSFT is doing on such a platform. I know it's not one of the things they'd normally think about as an 'officially supported' setup, but since it is how many companies WILL implement it, it would benefit everybody if it becomes a scenario that is included in product testing.

Given the fact that vistualization is now part of the newest operating system, I think the time has come to include virtualization recommendations about hardware and settings, in relation to NAV.

Tom_Cornelius

Good point, and I think you will start to see such virtualization benchmarks from MSFT in the future.

Our testing thus far has qualified 50 concurrent (simultaneous) users on a single non-virtualized NST.

Soumyadip

Can I install NAV Service Tier in 64bit OS? Will I still have higher RAM Limitation of 4GB?

kriki

Yes. You still have the 4GB limit because the servicetier is still 32bit. The only thing you can do is run multiple services and dividing the users between them. This way you have 2 times the 4GB limit.