Questionable IDS 9.21 performance on HP-UX v11.11

Greetings all, We're having severe performance problems with our OLTP Delphi app that connects to IDS via ODBC. Having researched the problem I can find no glaring operating system or database-configuration issues as such and my suspicion lies firmly with the application itself. However, I need to eliminate the O/S and IDS config as a source of the problem, and so I'd be grateful if you could run you eyes over the database config and confirm that I'm on the right track. First some background info: We're running IDS 9.21HC2 (32-bit, and yes, unsupported AFAIK) with HP-UX 11.11 on a new HP RP3440 which is a dual-processor (or dual-core to be more precise) system, with 4Gb of memory and a dual FC-attached VA disk array, which has dual 1Gb cache controllers and 10 x 15K RPM 36Gb disks. The database is used in primarily an OLTP fashion, with reports and batch jobs run concurrently (not ideal I know). During normal system operation, there is 700Mb free memory and minimal disk I/O, and nearly zero swapping or paging activity. The server is dedicated to IDS with on other 3rd party apps running on the server. Monitoring of the disk array shows that there is very little serious I/O throughput during the business day unless a batch or report process is kicked off, but even then it's not streching the disk array by any means. Although we're using 32-bit IDS, I've managed to squeeze 1.6Gb BUFFERS into the oninit address space by using chatr as advised by the Informix platform release notes. Chunk and dbspace-wise, we don't do anything fancy with layout; I simply striped the database LVs across the 2 disk LUNs that are presented by the disk array. We dont use fragmentation or anything of that sort, which as I understand it is more geared towards spreading I/O across direct-attached disks, and is therefore irrelvant in SAN environments? We use HP KAIO (export KAIOON=1 etc) and I've configured 4 KIO VPs, with 3 AIO VPs. Using the 'ratios' script from IIUG I get the following figures which seem to indicate a healthy system?: rp3440# ./ratios pgsused/(ixda-RA+idx-RA+da-RA)*100 Read-Ahead Util (RAU): 99.09% 30551519/(5005644+925893+24901674)*100 bufwaits*100 / (pagreads+bufwrits) Bufwaits Ratio (BWR): 0.67% (3127899*100) / (23877194+442457049) Buffer Turnover(Max): 582.92 (pagreads+bufwrits)/(BUFFERS=800000) Buffer Turnover(Min): 40.13 (pagreads+(bufwrits*(1-%cached)))/(BUFFERS) BT Period-max: 2.79/hr every 21.51 minutes. BT Period-min: 0.19/hr every 312.37 minutes. The only areas I have a question over are: - NETTYPE parameters (see below) ... do these look right, bearing in mind that the vast majority of connections to the database are via the network over TCP? - PDQ ... the developers here dont even know what Informix PDQ is, and as I understand it and app has to be written to specifically take advantage of it. How can I tell if PDQ *is* being used or not? - LOGBUFF ... is 32Kb enough? Doesnt seem like a lot. - PHYSBUFF ... is 64Kb enough? Again, doesnt seem like a lot. If there's any other stats you'd like me to provide then let me know. Thanks in advance, Jason |rp3440# onstat -m Informix Dynamic Server 2000 Version 9.21.HC2 -- On-Line -- Up 8 days 17:02:18 -- 2097152 Kbytes Message Log File: /informix/921/log/.log 14:35:02 Logical Log 108277 - Backup Started 14:35:40 Logical Log 108277 - Backup Completed 14:42:37 Logical Log 108278 Complete. 14:42:40 Logical Log 108278 - Backup Started 14:43:18 Logical Log 108278 - Backup Completed 14:48:06 Fuzzy Checkpoint Completed: duration was 0 seconds, 2741buffers not flushed. 14:48:06 Checkpoint loguniq 108279, logpos 0x13d690 15:04:11 Logical Log 108279 Complete. 15:04:14 Logical Log 108279 - Backup Started 15:04:52 Logical Log 108279 - Backup Completed 15:18:26 Fuzzy Checkpoint Completed: duration was 0 seconds, 2608buffers not flushed. 15:18:26 Checkpoint loguniq 108280, logpos 0x3cc030 15:20:54 Logical Log 108280 Complete. 15:20:57 Logical Log 108280 - Backup Started 15:21:37 Logical Log 108280 - Backup Completed 15:48:44 Fuzzy Checkpoint Completed: duration was 0 seconds, 1763buffers not flushed. 15:48:44 Checkpoint loguniq 108281, logpos 0x27a238 FYI ... when database started these were the startup messages (which includes KAIO message): 22:51:25 Informix Dynamic Server 2000 Started. 22:51:25 Could not create single shared memory segment with residentand non-resident par titions. Proceeding to create 2 shared memory segments instead. 22:51:27 Segment locked: addr=0x40000000, size=1073741824 22:51:29 Segment locked: addr=0x80000000, size=1073741824 Wed Aug 18 22:51:30 2004 22:51:30 Event alarms enabled. ALARMPROG = '/informix/921/etc/log_full.sh' 22:51:30 Booting Language <c> from module <> 22:51:30 Loading Module <CNULL> 22:51:30 Booting Language <builtin> from module <> 22:51:31 Loading Module <BUILTINNULL> 22:51:36 Informix Dynamic Server 2000 Version 9.21.HC2 SoftwareSerial Number AAC#J994713 22:51:36 HPUX Version B.11.11 -> Using flag/select style KAIO 22:51:36 HP KAIO concurrent requests changed from 1000 to 5000 22:51:36 (9) connection rejected - no calls allowed for sqlexec 22:51:36 listener-thread: err = -27002: oserr = 0: errstr = : Noconnections are allowed in Dynamic Server 2000 quiescent mode. 22:51:37 Informix Dynamic Server 2000 Initialized -- Shared MemoryInitialized. 22:51:37 Physical Recovery Started. 22:51:37 Physical Recovery Complete: 0 Pages Restored. 22:51:37 Logical Recovery Started. 22:51:37 10 recovery worker threads will be started. 22:51:40 Logical Recovery Complete. 0 Committed, 0 Rolled Back, 0 Open, 0 Bad Locks 22:51:41 Dataskip is now OFF for all dbspaces 22:51:42 Checkpoint Completed: duration was 1 seconds. 22:51:42 Checkpoint loguniq 104363, logpos 0x2c6018 22:51:42 Dropping temporary TBLspace 100120, recovering 8 pages. 22:51:42 Dropping temporary TBLspace 100121, recovering 8 pages. 22:51:42 Dropping temporary TBLspace 100124, recovering 8 pages. 22:51:42 Dropping temporary TBLspace 100125, recovering 8 pages. 22:51:42 Dropping temporary TBLspace 10012b, recovering 16 pages. 22:51:42 On-Line Mode |rp3440# onstat -c Informix Dynamic Server 2000 Version 9.21.HC2 -- On-Line -- Up 8 days 17:02:18 -- 2097152 Kbytes Configuration File: /informix/921/etc/onconfig. #************************************************************************** # # INFORMIX SOFTWARE, INC. # # Title: onconfig.std # Description: Informix Dynamic Server 2000 Configuration Parameters # #************************************************************************** # Root Dbspace Configuration ROOTNAME rootdbs # Root dbspace name ROOTPATH /DBSCHUNKS/smdbroot # Path for device containing rootdbspace ROOTOFFSET 0 # Offset of root dbspace