> Hi, we have a firebird (1.5.4) database on a remote suse linux server,
> and we are getting really slow performance. Our ping time to the
> server is 250-300ms.
> As an example, I connected via IBExpert, and after a really slow
> startup if I dbl-click a table to bring up its details, this takes 20
> seconds.
> ...
> The TCP packets all seem to be processed quite
> quickly, but the GDS DB ones are really slow... typically 300-400ms

First of all, IBExpert - for some reason - _IS_ awfully slow when
connecting to a remote database not in the LAN. I still remember when
I _had_ to use it over internet, probably running through a series of
firewalls and vpn tunnels with massive encryption.
There are some options to speed this up in IBExpert, but all in all it
will remain slow.

To make a real test I suggest that you put up a small application with
just some bare and small operations.

Also, I do not see why packages communicating with the FB server
should be any slower than the other TCP packages. You actually might
see the results of an FB server with a generally bad response time,
and the reasons for this probably have got nothing to do with the
implementation in the server software.

ciao,
André