[AccessD] Job Duration Puzzler - Access 2007 Report

Arthur Fuller fuller.artful at gmail.com
Mon Sep 16 15:08:02 CDT 2013


First of all, I can't explain the sudden jump in execution time, but since
you run the report daily, I assume that a significant amount of data is
added every day. It's possible that your tables have become fragmented.
That would be one thing to check.

You didn't mention the data-source, other than saying the data comes from
several SQL Server tables. Is the connection to SQL Server an ODBC
connection? Is the data-source an Access query using a WHERE clause? If so,
that is a definite performance hit, since in that context ALL the data
travels the pipe, and then Access applies the WHERE conditions. You could
probably gain hugely in performance if you create either a View or a Stored
procedure on the server database and then change the data-source to invoke
that.

A good way to handle that is to create a view on the database that mimics
your Access query, and then create a Pass-Through Query (PTQ) in Access,
whose content reads "CALL <your_view_or_sp>". Finally, change the
data-source on the report to the name of the PTQ just created.

This technique eliminates the passing of all the data to Access; instead
all the work is performed on the server.

Recently I did some consulting/mentoring with a guy who wrote a monster
Access app, with hundreds of Access queries. We identified some bottlenecks
and followed the procedure outlined above, and the results were dramatic to
say the least: execution was sometimes 10% of what it was originally. As a
result of our initial eexperiments, the client gradually replaced almost
all his Access queries with PTQs, and overall the conversion was a huge
success, eliciting kudos from many of his customers.

Hope this helps.

Arthur


On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 3:32 PM, Rocky Smolin <rockysmolin at bchacc.com>wrote:

> WAGS:
>
> Other jobs running at the same time now that weren't running before taking
> machine cycles?  Change in priority of your job? Can you monitor the Task
> Manager for the server while your job is running to see what else might be
> going on?
>
> R
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Brad Marks
> Sent: Monday, September 16, 2013 12:25 PM
> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> Subject: Re: [AccessD] Job Duration Puzzler - Access 2007 Report
>
> Rocky,
>
> Yes, it is running entirely on the server, pulling data from a local
> SQL-Server database.
>
> Brad
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Rocky Smolin
> Sent: Monday, September 16, 2013 2:21 PM
> To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
> Subject: Re: [AccessD] Job Duration Puzzler - Access 2007 Report
>
> Is it running entirely on the server with nothing coming across the wire?
>
> r
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Brad Marks
> Sent: Monday, September 16, 2013 12:15 PM
> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> Subject: [AccessD] Job Duration Puzzler - Access 2007 Report
>
> All,
>
> We have a high level Access 2007 Report that is generated every night.
> The data for this report is pulled from a number of SQL-Server database
> tables.
>
> This report is automatically generated nightly on a server with these specs
> - MS Window Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition SP2 2.50 Ghz
> 12 GB Ram
>
> About a month ago, I noticed that the "run time" for generating this report
> went from 8 minutes to 20 minutes.  Everything works fine, except that the
> run time has more than doubled.
>
> I can also run this same report on a stand-alone PC with these specs -
> Windows XP SP3 2.50 Ghz
> 3.25 GB Ram
>
> When the same report is generated on this PC, the job runs for about 8
> minutes.
>
> Over the weekend, when nothing else was running, I conducted a number of
> tests to confirm what I was seeing.
>
> The results were consistent.  The generation of this report takes more than
> twice as long on the Server as compared to the PC.
>
> I am very puzzled and not sure where to look.
>
> I don't know why the run times went up dramatically on the Server.
>
> I don't understand why the run times vary between the two boxes.
>
> Any insights or advice would be most appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Brad
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Arthur


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