Why is Zimbra SLOW?

[brwatters]

Zimbra has gotten much faster with the latest build of v4.53, JavaScript and about 1.5 megs of dn/load are the issue with the slow load of the web GUI.

BRW

[LinuxProphet]

I live and work mainly in Nigeria, but I have a concern in the U.K. and we are running a hosting business for Mobile Messaging.

Zimbra, as any blind fool can see, has one of the very best interfaces. Alas, the AJAX background presents very serious challenges when running on a server and has to pass data via VSAT to an African PC sitting behind a 128KBPS link.

For real. My servers are hosted in Dusseldorf, Heathrow (London, England) and Dallas TX. Large Pipes Server side are not a problem, Hardware no issue: (2-way Dual Operon 248s with 4GB of Fast DDR Memory).

"Mr Man, your product is too slow" was the complaint. I was embarrassed and grew weary of making excuses. Eventually, we had to bite the bullet and install "a competitor" who uses WSSI to generate fast HTML pages.

If GMail also uses AJAX and people don't complain, then why can't Zimbra Exec (and salesmen) admit there is a genuine issue that needs to be addressed?

No one is perfect. The great behemoth, after 30 odd years is still trying to get it right, so we can at least give Zimbra credit for remarkable work in such a short space of time.

Admission is the first step to solution IMHO. Telling people they are "lusers" or "go and scale up" may not be a very mature way of getting (and staying) at the top.

We want to help. We are happy we have the Source Code so, if technically inclined, we can assist in ironing out the bugs and optimizing the AJAX code.

Just my little piece of whatever.

LinuxProphet (Remember: Professionals built Titanic, Amateurs the Ark).

[KevinH]

ZCS 5.0 has a big focus on making the AJAX client load even faster. We've split the code into smaller modules. We load only the ones we need and as we need them. Only going to mail, you'll just get the mail modules. In the past we loaded ALL the code even for tabs/apps you didn't have access to. We are also working on further compressing the content and resources we send over the wire. Removing things that are unneeded and shrinking those that are still required. We've set some pretty aggressive goals to get to the first message in the INBOX in as fast as possible even over slower links.

We also introduced the HTML client in 4.5.x which is optimized for slow links and older PCs. This will work on the slowest of links where each request is a fully rendered HTML page that when gzipped on the wire are ~5Kb. All the images and any JS used on those pages are aggressively cached so they are only fetched once.

In ZCS 5.0 the HTML client will get some lite-AJAX in addition to adding Calendar. Things like keyboard nav and auto-complete are the big two that will make those who live in the HTML client due to bandwidth or PC issues much happier.

So in short we plan to make both clients load as fast as possible and reduce the time spent downloading.

[mmorse]

Try out the lite client via the hosted demo:
http://www.zimbra.com/products/hosted_demo.php
Than change your url from:
http://demo#.zimbra.com/zimbra/mail
To:
http://demo#.zimbra.com/zimbra/h/ (yes the end / is needed)

Originally Posted by LinuxProphet

If GMail also uses AJAX and people don't complain, then why can't Zimbra Exec (and salesmen) admit there is a genuine issue that needs to be addressed?

1) Not to repeat too much of what Kevin explains above; but it should be pointed out that the google apps are totally separated-they require a separate browser window/tab for all their clients-Zimbra does not.
More on the lazy loading for the individual tabs in v5 can be found here: (/blog/archives/2007/03/lazy_loading.html)

2) Most of the time these people are probably connecting to gmail in the html mode. Choices are standard with chat | standard without chat | basic HTML. They force basic automatically on slower connections.
Zimbra will be doing the same thing. The login page will auto-detect the slower connections and redirect them to the basic client (users can easily override that choice of course). Bug 10072 - Improve browser and bandwidth detection
And just like gmail the user can set their preferred interface (advanced or basic) to use once they login. -don't remember where the exact RFE for this is but close: Bug 16075 - Switch between basic and ajax client

Or the admin can force certain users/COSes to use the basic client only. Bug 14181 - Force Basic HTML Client for Users based on COS

[LinuxProphet]

Thanks so much for your professionally detailed reply.

I am very much aware of the 'lite' html pages (with the / suffix).

But as you know, the HTML variant does not have all the features of the AJAX pages.

But it is nice to know that V5 will address many of our concerns.

Many Thanks

[mmorse]

Originally Posted by LinuxProphet

Thanks so much for your professionally detailed reply.

no problem - we're just moderators, not zimbra employees - though of course I'm biased in a good way

I am very much aware of the 'lite' html pages (with the / suffix).

Didn't know if you we're currently using zimbra/what version because you had said: "eventually, we had to bite the bullet and install "a competitor" who uses WSSI to generate fast HTML pages."

But as you know, the HTML variant does not have all the features of the AJAX pages.
But it is nice to know that V5 will address many of our concerns.
Many Thanks

Well eventually you reach the limits of what you can do with HTML alone
Yup, for the lite client - the coming calendar (and inline day view), keyboard navigation, and auto-complete will make the experience much nicer. Be sure to file any additional enhancements you'd like to see in bugzilla!
I have attached a pic of the basic/lite client's in-line day view:

[zocs]

Greetings,

I am using ZCS 4.5.6 Open Source Edition. I have a small suggestion that may help in loading the intial screen (Login) faster.

My suggestion is after the first screen the folders which have child/children has an icon '+' displayed against their name. Can we make a small change in protocol so that the GetInfoRequest loads folder only upto a certain depth, lets say 3?
Others can be retreived from Zimbra server when the user clicks icon '+' of Level 2. If required a separate request/response can be modelled like <GetSubFolders l='parentFolderId' /> .

I can't quantify how much will this help, but this may be an initiative to the lazy loading of folders and its hierarchies. The model can also be extended for hierarchies in AddressBook, Calendar, Documents etc in the future.

I did not have a look at later versions of ZCS so don't know if this is already implemented.

[Bill Brock]

This is the problem I have using Windows 2000 and IE6 across SSL. Firefox works OK on win2k and IE6 works ok on XP.

The problem is the way IE6 in Win2k handles SSL.

Fortunately when I setup my proxy server and Win2k and IE6 go through the proxy it works much better. I guess the proxy server does a much better job with the SSL and the hand off to IE6.