Performance of Conversion Servers

[Former Member]

Hello Gurus,

Our site is composed of One SAP Application Server with 3 Content Servers placed at various geographical Locations on the globe and One Conversion Server. The distribution of the servers is as below:

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Minden, NV

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Content Server 1

Conversion Server

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Cincinnati

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Content Server 2

SAP Application Server

TREX Server

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London

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Content Server 3

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From a performance stand point, we are finding issues with the speed at which the conversion is happening for our Originals created in MS-Word, AutoCAD, SolidWorks, UG NX, Inventor , etc...

The Originals need to go through the Conversion Server first for the Conversion to Neutral format and then for Water Marking on every status Change. Right now the load on conversion server is not much since we are still in Quality Client and Yet we have already started to witness these performance issues. I am wondering what will happen when we go live.

We are wondering as to What we can Change / Add to increase the performance of the Conversion Servers.

Please let me know your suggestions / comments.

regards

Gaurav Pathak

[former_member188883]

Hi,

From a performance stand point, we are finding issues with the speed at which the conversion is happening for our Originals created in MS-Word, AutoCAD, SolidWorks, UG NX, Inventor , etc...

You will need to look into increasing the processing power of conversion server. To suggest you a optimal configuration you need share us technical configuration of conversion server viz Server model, CPU and RAM.

Addition to this you will need to look into optimizing your network bandwidth which may also affect the end result to the users.

Regards,

Deepak Kori

[Former Member]

Thanks to Deepak and Mangesh for giving a response to my post.

The Conversion Server details are as under :

u2022 HP Z800 Workstation

u2022 Windows XP Pro x64 Edition, SP2

u2022 2 Intel Xeon X5650: 12 CPU Cores @ 2.66GHz

u2022 12 GB of RAM

We can also think of adding more Conversion Servers just to do the Load Balancing Act But how many will be required is a question ?

Also Want to understand if proximity to the SAP Application Server is more beneficial or proximity to the Content server when it comes to improving the Performance.

Since we are using the Water Marking Functionality on every status change on the DIR, The DIR is locked by the Conversion Server every time the DIR undergoes a Status Change and we cannot allow a que of such DIR's to be built and hence the option of Scheduling the task is ruled out. We want this to happen on real time basis and with a time lag of 30sec max.

Your views / comments / Suggestions on this topic are highly appreciated, so please feel free to express them.

Thanks and regards

Gaurav Pathak

[former_member188883]

Hi Gaurav,

Below I depict my understanding of conversion server.

When you start the conversion server you actually run the batch file RunConvUtil.bat in the external system where the conversion takes place. This batch file triggers the executable ConvUtil.exe . The RunConvUtil batch file starts the ConvUtil.exe which runs the saphttp and sapftp programs on the server machine which waits for requests from clients(application server).

ConvServSamp is the RFC Server program which communicates with the converter and the R/3 application server.Information for the conversion is transferred from the SAP System to the program ConvServSamp using the RFC destination. ConvServSamp stores the information as files on the conversion server and starts a shell-script file with its own parameters. The shell-script file calls the converter using the syntax for the converter.

Based on above understanding I would propose that conversion server should be in proximity to SAP Servers. This can help in faster processing and better throughput.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Deepak Kori

[Former Member]

Hi Deepak,

Gaurav and I are working together on this project, thank you so much for your response. I'm hoping for a little more clarification though. When you say "I would propose that conversion server should be in proximity to SAP Servers", what are you referring to as SAP Servers? The application server or the content & cache server?

If you are referring to the content & cache server, then would adding a conversion server to each set of C&C servers be beneficial?

Thank you!

-Bruce Jacobson

[former_member188883]

Hi,

When you say "I would propose that conversion server should be in proximity to SAP Servers", what are you referring to as SAP Servers? The application server or the content & cache server?

Here SAP severs means applciation server. Cache server is totally is different concept as it is used to improve performance of data retrieval from content server.

Regads,

Deepak Kori

[Former Member]

based on my experiance for this global conversion, i suggest to place conversion servers together with each content server.

This to avoid moving the files outside the location, then you are able to speed this process up.

Depending on your supplier of conversion server solution (normally Seals Systems or Cideon) you would get some best practise, due to that they have been involved in the majority of this issues globally.

[MangeshP]

Dear Gaurav,

If this is the case then Keep all content servers , application servers and Conevrsion server at one location.

So all servers would be in close proximity and bandwidth issue may not occur.

For users accessing document from locations install Cache servers at their location to speed up access of documents.

Also I know that when status of DIR changes we have facility in DC10 to enter a Program routine for particular status which will trigger file conversion every time status is achived. So we would be able to achive the conversion on a realtime basis with no lag.

Offcourse I have not worked on conversions, But tried to put logic.

Can you please elaborate on how conversion happens ? Mean what are steps in detail which leads to conversion.

What are triggering steps. from where does conversion server gets information that so and so DIR is ready for conversion.

This will help me to provide you some solution if possible.

With warm Rgeards

Mangesh Pande

[Former Member]

Dear Mangesh and Per Högberg,

Thanks for taking interest in the issue.

It seems there is no Standard Solution and one will need to optimise the Solution for your specific Site from the advantages and disadvantages that comes along with one's choice of an option.

We have Boarded Cideon to review the design and help us in this regard with their prior experience and expertise.

Answer to Mangesh question ....The conversion server recieves packages from SAP Server which stay there in que till they are executed. These packages are signals / trigers which get generated based on the configuration you have done for the conversion server in SPRO.

Thanks and regards

Gaurav Pathak

[MangeshP]

Dear Gaurav,

My opinion would be that the conversion will take time as the documents are generated and preocessed at various location across globe. If you can make some workaround such as scheuling the Concersion of Document in Batch either hourly and during night when load is very less. The business criticaliyty should be checked for scheduling conversion jobs.

Hope my opinion is of smoe use.

With regards

Mangesh Pande