Zimbra VERY SLOW. How to improve performance?

[dvdias]

Translated from Portuguese into English by the google translate.

Scenario:
- Netfinity IBM x3400 server
Intel Xeon Core2Quad
5GB ram
2 HDs SAS 15K rpm of 145 GB in RAID 1 through hardware
1Gbps network
- Distribution Ubuntu Server amd64 TLS 8:04
- Partitions in LVM and ext3
- ZCS GA 5.0.16 deb package for ubuntu 8:04 64bit
- 4 Domains
- 124 accounts, with 100 accounts in constant use.
- Server inside the internal network connected to the network with Gigabit cable Certified.
- The Company has structured cabling and switchs 10/100Mbit 3con

Are approximately:
20 new machine (Core Duo and Core2Duo with 2GB RAM)
50 best machine (P4 with 512MB and 1GB RAM)
30 old machines (Pentium 133, MMX 233, P2 and most PIII 500 with 64MB RAM) - These are using Thunderbird connecting via IMAP
All workstations are connected all the time in web zimbra in a flow of 1500 emails/h

The OS of the machines go to the Win95 up to Vista, according to the capability of hardware.

In principle we try to use the web zimbra with AJAX interface and the machines but, only top machines has satisfatory performance.
The best machines, we try to use the HTML interface, but was a disaster, vvveeeerrrrryyyyyy slow, where a simple backpace the publishing of a message came to take 15 seconds plus 15 seconds for another character plus 15 seconds another character. The Zimbra had a bad evaluation of users.

Monitoring the server can not find more than 80% of CPU usage in a single core, whereas in the group of 4 processing cores did not reach 40%. The evil came to 3GB memory actually used. The Swap is intact since the activation of the server and free space of HD is almost 80GB.

Workaround: Thunderbird / IMAP for everyone! But he and other resources? Yeah, the server was reduced to a simple mail server!

I would like to help me adjust the settings of the Zimbra and discover how to obtain a correct performance.

Daniel.

[thorng]

The Server is fine, the problem is the AJAX client. it is a resource hog. You will have problem getting the AJAX to run at an acceptable performance on anything short of 1 GB RAM. Have you try the starndard HTML Interface? You can choose standard client when you log in. An alternative will be Thunderbird + Lightning (for calendar) and you can set up Address book to query Zimbra LDAP directory as well. However, the Lightning CalDav connection to Zimbra is still very buggy in my experiences.

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by dvdias

- The Company has structured cabling and switchs 10/100Mbit 3con

Did you really mean '10/100Mbit'?

[dvdias]

I setup standard HTML access to all users and the continued low performance.
The AJAX interface is not slow at all the resources, the opening, alternate folders, switch tabs run well, but when you open a new email or reply message is unbearable slowness, and in search the global address list, which takes 1 minutes to show the contacts for each letter typed.

I will configure LDAP access in the lighting and test. It synchronizes the aguendas in two environments, as occurs with the email in IMAP?

[dvdias]

Originally Posted by phoenix

Did you really mean '10/100Mbit'?

All machines are connect at 100Mbit
Even the 100Mbit and all connected in HTML, occur problems of the slowly

There is setting the amount of web processes and process of Zimbra to accept more requests without needing to upgrade hardware? Does it work?

[dreamgear]

(not an expert on this but)

What browser are you using? Is there anything that could be slowing down the js interpreter to a crawl? Try Firefox and Chrome.

[dvdias]

Originally Posted by dreamgear

What browser are you using? Is there anything that could be slowing down the js interpreter to a crawl? Try Firefox and Chrome.

The Chrome I not tried because don't work in Windows 95, 98 and 2000.
I tried firefox 3.5, 3.0 and 2.0 but no improvement.

I believe the problem is the appropriateness of the settings of Zimbra.
He must support 100 users online in the Zimbra-web

[thorng]

Is the Server connected on Gigabit Ethernet? Check the Network throughput on the server interface. See if you are geting large amount of packet errors or that the interface is negotiated at wrong speed. Is the server and client at same subnet? If the server is on Gigabit connection, make sure jumbo frames are "not" turn on for the switch or the server. ( you can ignore the jumbo frame part if it is only 10/100 switch)

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by dvdias

All machines are connect at 100Mbit
Even the 100Mbit and all connected in HTML, occur problems of the slowly

I really think you should consider upgrading your network h/w to Gigibit. You should also confirm that every piece of equipment connected to your LAN is running at full duplex, some switches and NICs are notorious for not making the duplex settings correctly.

[Klug]

From what I've seen, he made some tests with Win95 and Win98 and W2000.

Considering how old these operating system are, I guess the computer they're running on are very old too.

So I guess whatever browser you'll use on them, they'll have huge problems rendering the AJAX web client correctly.

For the records, we made some tests with Athlon 2800XP+, 2 GB of memory and motherboard-integrated 32MB video card (SiS). They're painfully slow, it's a pain to work with the AJAX client.
However, an underclocked Atom, with 1GB of RAM and the basic integrated GMA, runs the AJAX client much better (can be used without any issue by everyday user).

Even if the CPU has much less power, the (bad) integrated graphic chipset is much better than a 5 years old ultra-lame one...