Hi Set/Jason,

Svein Erling Tysvaer wrote:

> Hi Jason!
>
> At 07:47 02.09.2002 +0200, you wrote:
>
>>I am new to Firebird and I just wanted to know, what do I have to do to keep
>>my database running fast and smoothly.
>
>
> This isn't all too difficult, unless you are dealing with huge tables and
> demanding users who expect their queries to work instantly without any
> tuning. Just make sure that no transactions are running for too long (watch
> the gap between the oldest active transaction and the next transaction) and
> examine the plan of your queries before you actually execute them. I'm not
> certain if it is still an issue, but formerly it was necessary to make sure
> IB just ran on one processor if run on a Windows machine with several
> processors (there was some utility called IB_Affinity available to help
> you).

no, this is no longer an issue in FB1 - one multi-cpu systems, you can set a
bit mask in the ibconfig file. quote from the UsingFirebird.pdf found on the
IBPhoenix CD:

<quote>
cpu_affinity
With Firebird SuperServer on Windows, there is a problem with Windows
continually swapping the server
process back and forth between processors on SMP machines. This ruins
performance. Until now, to set
ibserver's affinity to a single CPU, it was necessary to run the server as an
application and to run a utility
(IB_Affinity.exe) on top of the running server program.

This new configuration parameter can be added to ibconfig to remove the need for
any external program to
change CPU affinity on an SMP Windows system.

CPU_AFFINITY takes one integer, the CPU mask.

Example:
CPU_AFFINITY 1
only runs on the first CPU (CPU 0).
CPU_AFFINITY 2
only runs on the second CPU (CPU 1).
CPU_AFFINITY 3
runs on both first and second CPU.


This setting will take effect when the service starts up.
This parameter has no effect in Windows9x or ME, as it uses an NT API call. W9x
flavors DO NOT
take advantage of multiple processors.

</quote>

> Then of course, you should make sure that you have defined "sensible"
> indexes, where "sensible" is a word open for discussions. And if you come
> from the world of desktop databases, forget the word "table" and start
> thinking datasets and client/server when writing programs.
>
> Welcome to us all!
> Set

a few more hints here:
- if you're running FB on WinME or WinXP, better name your .gdb's as .fdb
(look at http://www.fingerman.de/fbshellext.htm under "Windows ME/XP warning"
for more details)

- make sure no process (i.e. OS Backup Software) tries to copy your GDB/FDB file
while users are connected. this can corrupt your database.

- from time to time it is a good idea to backup the db and restore it *to a
different location*. this is just to make sure the backup/restore really works
(it always did for me). As the restored db is written from scratch, it is
usually smaller than the original and "fragmentation" in the db is cleaned up
which should increase performance. So when you find the restored db ok, you can
copy it to the original location (shutdown the original db before this).

- relax :-) FB is the most stable database i've ever worked with - if you follow
the very few rules above, you shouldn't have any trouble.

regards & welcome Jason!,
fingerman

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fingerbirdy - fingerman's door to Firebird
http://www.fingerbird.de