Client rollout for 8.5

[John S. Bellendir]

Hi:

We are upgrading from Meeting Maker version 7.53 to 8.50(8.51 if it's
released in time). We have a client install issue. The majority of the users
do not have local admin rights on their desktops (approximately 500 users).
The autopush would work fine but since they do not have administrator
privileges on the desktops, the installs will fail. What (if any) methods
are you using to overcome this problem? We cannot visit each desktop
manually or remotely to grant elevated privileges to those non-admins. We
are also rolling out SMS but that project is still fairly young and not all
desktops have the SMS client.


Thanks!

John S. Bellendir
CD\CSS\CSI Fermilab


* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML

[Ian Eiloart]

--On April 13, 2005 08:59:45 -0500 "John S. Bellendir" <***@FNAL.GOV>
wrote:

> Hi:
>
> We are upgrading from Meeting Maker version 7.53 to 8.50(8.51 if it's
> released in time). We have a client install issue. The majority of the
> users do not have local admin rights on their desktops (approximately 500
> users). The autopush would work fine but since they do not have
> administrator privileges on the desktops, the installs will fail. What
> (if any) methods are you using to overcome this problem?

> We cannot visit
> each desktop manually or remotely to grant elevated privileges to those
> non-admins.

We did the upgrade yesterday. Our Workstation Services team had some kind
of Windows admin tool that let them install the client software overnight
in advance of the server upgrade. It didn't catch everyone, but turned an
almost impossible task into a reasonably manageable one.

Our main problem was with people who've forgotten their passwords, and with
Mac users who used the (mostly broken) autoupgrade facility.

Asynchronous upgrades is top of my wish list for meetingmaker. We're still
only at 200 users, and I hate to think what the next major upgrade will be
like, with maybe 5-10 times that.

> We are also rolling out SMS but that project is still fairly
> young and not all desktops have the SMS client.
>

> Thanks!
>
> John S. Bellendir
> CD\CSS\CSI Fermilab
>
>
> * MMXP-TALK Web Page:
> http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML



--
Ian Eiloart
Servers Team
Sussex University ITS


* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML

[Thomas Betz]

John S. Bellendir wrote:
> What (if any) methods are you using to overcome this problem?

I'm in the beginning steps of our own upgrade from 6.07 right to 8.5 --
a one-person IT shop supporting about 70 MM users at five locations. I
won't even have the luxury of pushing the client out (installed or not)
before the upgrade.

My solution is first to get the HTML client working on a test database,
give a demo or two to groups of MM users, and to give the users a week
or two to look at it. Then, when I do the cutover to the real database,
they'll be using the HTML client exclusively for a day or two or three
or four while I touch all the PCs and install the new client, starting
with the Palm syncers, and moving on down the line.

--
Tom Betz, System Administrator
Greyston Foundation
Phone [phone] ext 230
Processing the finest bytes since 1982...


* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML

[Margaret A. Menzies]

Tom,

This is great info on a very creative way to address a roll-out. Would you mind if I reposted it to our Meeting Maker forums on our Customer Support Center?

Margaret

Margaret A. Menzies
VP Development
Meeting Maker, Inc
E: ***@meetingmaker.com

Preview Meeting Maker's Mobile Calendar & Email product at the Solutions Conference May 23-27, 2005!
Learn more at: http://www.meetingmaker.com/solutions2005.cfm

----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas Betz
To: MMXP-***@listserv.cc.EMORY.EDU
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2005 10:18
Subject: Re: Client rollout for 8.5


John S. Bellendir wrote:
> What (if any) methods are you using to overcome this problem?

I'm in the beginning steps of our own upgrade from 6.07 right to 8.5 --
a one-person IT shop supporting about 70 MM users at five locations. I
won't even have the luxury of pushing the client out (installed or not)
before the upgrade.

My solution is first to get the HTML client working on a test database,
give a demo or two to groups of MM users, and to give the users a week
or two to look at it. Then, when I do the cutover to the real database,
they'll be using the HTML client exclusively for a day or two or three
or four while I touch all the PCs and install the new client, starting
with the Palm syncers, and moving on down the line.

--
Tom Betz, System Administrator
Greyston Foundation
Phone [phone] ext 230
Processing the finest bytes since 1982...


* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML


* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML

[Jahed Sukhun]

My question to Meeting Maker is: When are we going to get rid of the client and just go with web access and no client on the desktop? Jahed

----- Original Message -----
From: Margaret A. Menzies
To: MMXP-***@listserv.cc.EMORY.EDU
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2005 8:49 AM
Subject: Re: Client rollout for 8.5


Tom,

This is great info on a very creative way to address a roll-out. Would you mind if I reposted it to our Meeting Maker forums on our Customer Support Center?

Margaret

Margaret A. Menzies
VP Development
Meeting Maker, Inc
E: ***@meetingmaker.com

Preview Meeting Maker's Mobile Calendar & Email product at the Solutions Conference May 23-27, 2005!
Learn more at: http://www.meetingmaker.com/solutions2005.cfm

----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas Betz
To: MMXP-***@listserv.cc.EMORY.EDU
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2005 10:18
Subject: Re: Client rollout for 8.5


John S. Bellendir wrote:
> What (if any) methods are you using to overcome this problem?

I'm in the beginning steps of our own upgrade from 6.07 right to 8.5 --
a one-person IT shop supporting about 70 MM users at five locations. I
won't even have the luxury of pushing the client out (installed or not)
before the upgrade.

My solution is first to get the HTML client working on a test database,
give a demo or two to groups of MM users, and to give the users a week
or two to look at it. Then, when I do the cutover to the real database,
they'll be using the HTML client exclusively for a day or two or three
or four while I touch all the PCs and install the new client, starting
with the Palm syncers, and moving on down the line.

--
Tom Betz, System Administrator
Greyston Foundation
Phone [phone] ext 230
Processing the finest bytes since 1982...


* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML

* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML


* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML

[Ian Eiloart]

--On April 13, 2005 09:26:57 -0700 Jahed Sukhun <***@PDX.EDU> wrote:

> My question to Meeting Maker is: When are we going to get rid of the
> client and just go with web access and no client on the desktop? Jahed
>

If they did that, we'd probably abandon Meeting Maker. The ability to work
offline is about the most useful feature of Meeting Maker. You can't do
that with a web client. That's why I'm looking forward (vainly?) to Meeting
Maker making proper unix source available for the clients, so we can
compile on multiple platforms.


--
Ian Eiloart
Servers Team
Sussex University ITS


* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML

[Thomas Betz]

Margaret A. Menzies wrote:
>
> This is great info on a very creative way to address a roll-out. Would
> you mind if I reposted it to our Meeting Maker forums on our Customer
> Support Center?

If you like; but it turns out that I may not end up going that way. I
guess it will largely depend on how difficult it is to get the HTML
client running.

Today's experimentation indicates that I may be able to avoid reliance
on the HTML client, and let users have the regular client instead.

I tested installing MM 8.5's client alongside the MM 6.08 client on my
own Windows 2000 PC, and found that so long as I
a) rename the existing directory Start Menu\Programs\MeetingMaker to
Start Menu\Programs\MeetingMaker6, b) install MeetingMaker 8.5 in a
non-default directory like C:\Program Files\Meetingmaker8, and c) don't
install the 8.5 Palm conduits, I can continue to use MeetingMaker 6
while testing MeetingMaker 8.5 (which is pointed at the new server).

This means I should be able to go around pre-cutover and manually
install the 8.5 client (sans Palm conduits) on all my primary site's
users' PCs, giving them a chance to try out all its features except the
Palm sync in advance of the cutover. I can also install the 8.5 client
on out Metaframe server, giving remote users the same opportunity,
intermediated by the Metaframe server.

Then, when the cutover happens, I should just have to re-direct our
router's port forwarding for port 417 (and 44417, the other static port
we have assigned for Meeting Maker use) to the 8.5 server, and remote
users will also be able to use the new Meeting Maker client directly on
their own PCs.

This would mean that the only PCs I'd have to touch after the cutover
would be those belonging to Palm syncers, to install and set up the
conduits.

As several of these users (using Palm OS 3.x) must upgrade their Palms
to be able to continue to use them, I'll have to mess with them anyway.

One question I have is, will using non-default directories for this
installation break anything? I've seen the TechNote about "PalmOne" vs
"Palm" breaking conduit installation... what other path dependencies are
built into Meeting Maker products?


> Margaret
>
> Margaret A. Menzies
> VP Development
> Meeting Maker, Inc
> E: ***@meetingmaker.com <mailto:***@meetingmaker.com>
>
> Preview Meeting Maker's Mobile Calendar & Email product at the Solutions
> Conference May 23-27, 2005!
> Learn more at: http://www.meetingmaker.com/solutions2005.cfm
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Thomas Betz <mailto:***@GREYSTON.ORG>
> *To:* MMXP-***@listserv.cc.EMORY.EDU
> <mailto:MMXP-***@listserv.cc.EMORY.EDU>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, April 13, 2005 10:18
> *Subject:* Re: Client rollout for 8.5
>
> John S. Bellendir wrote:
> > What (if any) methods are you using to overcome this problem?
>
> I'm in the beginning steps of our own upgrade from 6.07 right to 8.5 --
> a one-person IT shop supporting about 70 MM users at five locations. I
> won't even have the luxury of pushing the client out (installed or not)
> before the upgrade.
>
> My solution is first to get the HTML client working on a test database,
> give a demo or two to groups of MM users, and to give the users a week
> or two to look at it. Then, when I do the cutover to the real
> database,
> they'll be using the HTML client exclusively for a day or two or three
> or four while I touch all the PCs and install the new client, starting
> with the Palm syncers, and moving on down the line.
>
> --
> Tom Betz, System Administrator
> Greyston Foundation
> Phone [phone] ext 230
> Processing the finest bytes since 1982...
>
>
> * MMXP-TALK Web Page:
> http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML
>
> * MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML
>


--
Tom Betz, System Administrator
Greyston Foundation
Phone [phone] ext 230
Processing the finest bytes since 1982...


* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML

[Thomas Betz]

A problem I had today impelled me to follow up on this.

Meeting Maker Palm Sync uses the most recently-installed copy of
mmapi32.dll. Because I had installed the 8.5 client (without Palm
conduits) last, it broke Palm sync for my 6.08 client. Re-installing
the 6.08 client (and the Palm conduits) over itself fixed this.

So if anyone is going to be running the two clients side-by-side for
testing, or pre-rollout, and you want to be able to continue to sync
your Palm device to the old server, you'll want to first uninstall the
old client, then install the new client (in a non-default directory),
rename the Start Menu\Programs\MeetingMaker directory to something
non-default for the new client, then re-install the old client.

In future, MeetingMaker could make this job simpler if it would change
the installer so that one could not only edit the installation directory
path, but also edit the Start Menu directory name during the
installation process.

Thomas Betz wrote:
> Margaret A. Menzies wrote:
>
>>
>> This is great info on a very creative way to address a roll-out.
>> Would you mind if I reposted it to our Meeting Maker forums on our
>> Customer Support Center?
>
>
> If you like; but it turns out that I may not end up going that way. I
> guess it will largely depend on how difficult it is to get the HTML
> client running.
>
> Today's experimentation indicates that I may be able to avoid reliance
> on the HTML client, and let users have the regular client instead.
>
> I tested installing MM 8.5's client alongside the MM 6.08 client on my
> own Windows 2000 PC, and found that so long as I
> a) rename the existing directory Start Menu\Programs\MeetingMaker to
> Start Menu\Programs\MeetingMaker6, b) install MeetingMaker 8.5 in a
> non-default directory like C:\Program Files\Meetingmaker8, and c) don't
> install the 8.5 Palm conduits, I can continue to use MeetingMaker 6
> while testing MeetingMaker 8.5 (which is pointed at the new server).
>
> This means I should be able to go around pre-cutover and manually
> install the 8.5 client (sans Palm conduits) on all my primary site's
> users' PCs, giving them a chance to try out all its features except the
> Palm sync in advance of the cutover. I can also install the 8.5 client
> on out Metaframe server, giving remote users the same opportunity,
> intermediated by the Metaframe server.
>
> Then, when the cutover happens, I should just have to re-direct our
> router's port forwarding for port 417 (and 44417, the other static port
> we have assigned for Meeting Maker use) to the 8.5 server, and remote
> users will also be able to use the new Meeting Maker client directly on
> their own PCs.
>
> This would mean that the only PCs I'd have to touch after the cutover
> would be those belonging to Palm syncers, to install and set up the
> conduits.
>
> As several of these users (using Palm OS 3.x) must upgrade their Palms
> to be able to continue to use them, I'll have to mess with them anyway.
>
> One question I have is, will using non-default directories for this
> installation break anything? I've seen the TechNote about "PalmOne" vs
> "Palm" breaking conduit installation... what other path dependencies are
> built into Meeting Maker products?
>
>
>> Margaret
>>
>> Margaret A. Menzies
>> VP Development
>> Meeting Maker, Inc
>> E: ***@meetingmaker.com <mailto:***@meetingmaker.com>
>>
>> Preview Meeting Maker's Mobile Calendar & Email product at the
>> Solutions Conference May 23-27, 2005!
>> Learn more at: http://www.meetingmaker.com/solutions2005.cfm
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> *From:* Thomas Betz <mailto:***@GREYSTON.ORG>
>> *To:* MMXP-***@listserv.cc.EMORY.EDU
>> <mailto:MMXP-***@listserv.cc.EMORY.EDU>
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, April 13, 2005 10:18
>> *Subject:* Re: Client rollout for 8.5
>>
>> John S. Bellendir wrote:
>> > What (if any) methods are you using to overcome this problem?
>>
>> I'm in the beginning steps of our own upgrade from 6.07 right to
>> 8.5 --
>> a one-person IT shop supporting about 70 MM users at five
>> locations. I
>> won't even have the luxury of pushing the client out (installed or
>> not)
>> before the upgrade.
>>
>> My solution is first to get the HTML client working on a test
>> database,
>> give a demo or two to groups of MM users, and to give the users a
>> week
>> or two to look at it. Then, when I do the cutover to the real
>> database,
>> they'll be using the HTML client exclusively for a day or two or
>> three
>> or four while I touch all the PCs and install the new client,
>> starting
>> with the Palm syncers, and moving on down the line.
>>
>> -- Tom Betz, System Administrator
>> Greyston Foundation
>> Phone [phone] ext 230
>> Processing the finest bytes since 1982...
>>
>>
>> * MMXP-TALK Web Page:
>> http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML
>>
>> * MMXP-TALK Web Page:
>> http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML
>>
>
>


--
Tom Betz, System Administrator
Greyston Foundation
Phone [phone] ext 230
Processing the finest bytes since 1982...


* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML

[John Chang]

In previous versions of MM client the user account either had to be power
user or change the privileges so that users can write to to MM
folder. Does this version save the data in their own folder? Or what is
the best way to set this up if it doesn't. Thanks,

John


* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML

[John Chang]

What kind of issues are there with the MM 8.5? The previous version that
we installed had so many issues we had to go back to 7.5 and don't want to
get into that position again. So please tell me all the negative findings
so we can make a better judgement this time around. Thank you.

John


* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML

[Mike Baptiste]

John,

We've been very happy with v8.5 so far. We did an active push/upgrade for
folks so they got prompted to download the new client and install it after
the server upgrade (background slow push wasn't an option - we had to upgrade
in a hurry) Download took 10 mins or so - obviously throttled regardless of
server load - but no huge worries - people knew it would take a bit and we
told them to be patient. Almost all our users have Admin rights so we didn't
face the admin install problem

The import from our v7.2 server went fine after a few MMRX runs. The users
took to the new clients with ease.

Our only client side problem was we attempted to use pre-configured installer
packages. They worked fine except for people with Palm pilots. Even though
our control file said to install the conduits, they never got installed. We
just used the stock installer with prompts for our Palm users and things were
fine after that. Was a problem on both Macs and PCs.

We just installed the HTML Web Client - the install was a snap and installed
out of the box into Tomcat 5 on a Suse ES 9 server - was very nice and easy
to setup (only hiccup was a network connection problem because I typoed the
server IP address :) )

This is a single server install - no hub. But overall we're happy. Next up
is Intellisync for our Blackberry users. Based on how the HTML client went
in I expect it to be smooth.

Mike


On Wednesday 13 April 2005 11:56 am, John Chang wrote:
> What kind of issues are there with the MM 8.5? The previous version that
> we installed had so many issues we had to go back to 7.5 and don't want to
> get into that position again. So please tell me all the negative findings
> so we can make a better judgement this time around. Thank you.
>
> John
>
>
> * MMXP-TALK Web Page:
> http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML


* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML

[Christian Müller]

Hm...


Webaccess is slower and does not provide features such as most of the offline functionality.

So from my point of view: hopefully never. But you could do it yourseff by simply not using the client,
since 8.5 does support web access quite well.

On Mittwoch, 13. April 2005 18:26 Uhr, Jahed Sukhun <***@PDX.EDU> wrote:
>
>My question to Meeting Maker is: When are we going to get rid
>of the client and just go with web access and no client on the desktop? Jahed
> 
>
>----- Original Message -----
> From: Margaret A. Menzies
> To: MMXP-***@listserv.cc.EMORY.EDU
> Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2005 8:49 AM
> Subject: Re: Client rollout for 8.5
>
>
> Tom,
>  
> This is great info on a very creative way to address a
>roll-out.  Would you mind if I reposted it to our Meeting Maker
>forums on our Customer Support Center? 
>  
> Margaret
>  
> Margaret A. Menzies
>VP Development
>Meeting Maker, Inc
>E: ***@meetingmaker.com
>  
> Preview Meeting Maker's Mobile Calendar & Email product at the
>Solutions Conference May 23-27, 2005!
>Learn more at: http://www.meetingmaker.com/solutions2005.cfm
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Thomas Betz
> To: MMXP-***@listserv.cc.EMORY.EDU
> Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2005 10:18
> Subject: Re: Client rollout for 8.5
>
>John S. Bellendir wrote:
>> What (if any) methods are you using to overcome this problem?
>
>I'm in the beginning steps of our own upgrade from 6.07 right to 8.5 --
>a one-person IT shop supporting about 70 MM users at five locations.  I
>won't even have the luxury of pushing the client out (installed or not)
>before the upgrade.
>
>My solution is first to get the HTML client working on a test database,
>give a demo or two to groups of MM users, and to give the users a week
>or two to look at it.  Then, when I do the cutover to the real database,
>they'll be using the HTML client exclusively for a day or two or three
>or four while I touch all the PCs and install the new client, starting
>with the Palm syncers, and moving on down the line.
>
>--
>Tom Betz, System Administrator
>Greyston Foundation
>Phone [phone] ext 230
>Processing the finest bytes since 1982...
>
>
>* MMXP-TALK Web Page: 
>http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML
>
>* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML
> * MMXP-TALK Web Page:
>http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML
>


* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML

[Ian Eiloart]

--On April 13, 2005 11:56:56 -0400 John Chang <***@UMICH.EDU> wrote:

> What kind of issues are there with the MM 8.5? The previous version that
> we installed had so many issues we had to go back to 7.5 and don't want
> to get into that position again. So please tell me all the negative
> findings so we can make a better judgement this time around. Thank you.
>
> John
>
> * MMXP-TALK Web Page:
> http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML

Which version did you install? Lots of new features in 8.5 compared with
8.0.

I have had 8.5 refuse to start because a database was corrupted. Logging is
still very poor:

Logs in multiple files, in multiple locations.


when we eventually found a log entry it said "this file is not a
meetingmaker database", but didn't say which file, so we had to check
access times on all our server databases. The log entry wasn't in the
server log that is opened by the GUI - that log just said the server was
launched ok.

--
Ian Eiloart
Servers Team
Sussex University ITS


* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML

[Ian Eiloart]

--On April 13, 2005 11:56:56 -0400 John Chang <***@UMICH.EDU> wrote:

> What kind of issues are there with the MM 8.5? The previous version that
> we installed had so many issues we had to go back to 7.5 and don't want
> to get into that position again. So please tell me all the negative
> findings so we can make a better judgement this time around. Thank you.
>
> John
>
> * MMXP-TALK Web Page:
> http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML

We upgraded on Tuesday. We had a corrupted database on Wednesday that it
took 3 hours to diagnose. We're now seeing terrible performance issues. For
example, it takes more than 30 seconds to delete an event. We didn't see
these issues with 7.5.3, and we haven't changed the hardware.

--
Ian Eiloart
Servers Team
Sussex University ITS


* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML

[Ian Eiloart]

--On April 15, 2005 10:00:59 +0100 Ian Eiloart <***@SUSSEX.AC.UK> wrote:

> --On April 13, 2005 11:56:56 -0400 John Chang <***@UMICH.EDU> wrote:
>
>> What kind of issues are there with the MM 8.5? The previous version that
>> we installed had so many issues we had to go back to 7.5 and don't want
>> to get into that position again. So please tell me all the negative
>> findings so we can make a better judgement this time around. Thank you.
>>
>> John
>>
>> * MMXP-TALK Web Page:
>> http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML
>
> We upgraded on Tuesday. We had a corrupted database on Wednesday that it
> took 3 hours to diagnose. We're now seeing terrible performance issues.
> For example, it takes more than 30 seconds to delete an event. We didn't
> see these issues with 7.5.3, and we haven't changed the hardware.

Hmm, that's interesting. It turns out that the same database got corrupted
again. This time the corrupted database didn't prevent startup, but
clobbered performance. After removing the database, performance was fine.
Fortunately, the database was purely for demonstration purposes, so had no
real data on it.

--
Ian Eiloart
Servers Team
Sussex University ITS


* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML

[Jim Wright]

On Apr 15, 2005, at 4:53 AM, Ian Eiloart wrote:

> Hmm, that's interesting. It turns out that the same database got
> corrupted again. This time the corrupted database didn't prevent
> startup, but clobbered performance. After removing the database,
> performance was fine. Fortunately, the database was purely for
> demonstration purposes, so had no real data on it.

I don't actually run our server anymore, but when I did, before an
upgrade I would MMRX as many times as necessary to get a clean run,
export, import, then MMRX again (and possibly again) to correct any
further issues. I'm not sure why, but sometimes errors can creep in
during an import.


Jim


* MMXP-TALK Web Page: http://WWW.LISTSERV.Emory.Edu/Archives/MMXP-TALK.HTML

[Ian Eiloart]

--On April 15, 2005 10:38:44 -0500 Jim Wright <***@APPLE.COM> wrote:

> On Apr 15, 2005, at 4:53 AM, Ian Eiloart wrote:
>
>> Hmm, that's interesting. It turns out that the same database got
>> corrupted again. This time the corrupted database didn't prevent
>> startup, but clobbered performance. After removing the database,
>> performance was fine. Fortunately, the database was purely for
>> demonstration purposes, so had no real data on it.
>
> I don't actually run our server anymore, but when I did, before an
> upgrade I would MMRX as many times as necessary to get a clean run,
> export, import, then MMRX again (and possibly again) to correct any
> further issues. I'm not sure why, but sometimes errors can creep in
> during an import.
>
>

Yes, I did that. Both before the export, and after the import.

I did see a lot of errors after the import. They were new types of error,
so I think they're due to improved functionality in MMRx.
--
Ian Eiloart
Servers Team
Sussex University ITS


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[Jeep Hauser]

on 4/13/05 8:56 AM John Chang wrote:
> What kind of issues are there with the MM 8.5? The previous version
> that we installed had so many issues we had to go back to 7.5 and don't
> want to get into that position again. So please tell me all the
> negative findings so we can make a better judgement this time around.
> Thank you.

The only problem we had was the allure of a great new feature, and it's
not-quite-ready-for-primetime performance. What were the issues that
forced you back to 7.5?

Our front desk makes appointments for our staff, and there's a new
feature in 8.x to "View proxy in calendar" as an alternative to the
Master Schedule view. The new view allows you to view multiple people's
calendars all in a single, unified window.

This is a fantastic new addition and our front desk loves it - however,
the performance of it leaves something to be desired. To be more exact,
to view 5 individuals at once, each with about 10 events per day, slows
the application down to a complete standstill. Initially loading the
view of 5 users takes about 2 minutes. Each action the user takes (like
going from one day to the next) can take upwards of a minute and a half
to refresh the view. Once the data is locally cached, it works quite
nicely - but that's only one week's worth of data, so moving around
beyond that scope is very tedious.

This is all client-side work. I went through MM Support to resolve it,
and we found that this feature simply needs heavy optimization on the
Mac. They had no problems when the client is on a dual G5 system (I
would hope so!), but we were running on iMac G4s, and had terrible
performance. We did buy two new iMac G5s, which have helped 'enough' to
get by, but it still gets rough.

I believe this is targeted for improvement in an upcoming release, but
I'm holding my breath.

If you want to use this feature, please make sure you test it heavily.

Outside of that, 8.5 is a great release and makes huge strides over the
7.x line. We spent a short time on 8.0, but that was very buggy.
Definitely go with 8.5 or later.

FWIW, we're running a mix of Macs (all on MOSX.3) and PCs (mix Win2K and
XP Pro), with the server on a dual G4/533 with 640MB RAM.

Jeep


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