How can I configure the system for
best performance?
The most important in tuning the system for performance
is to disable functionality that requires disk operations. The two most obvious
things to do are to disable persistent message queues and to disable detailed
logging. Also it is a good option to limit the number of outgoing and incoming
routes to the minimum and to disable other unnecesary functionality, such as
accounting, unused user and application configurations etc.
You can
purchase consultancy or you can purchase our performance optimization service
to help you tune your system.
How can I handle unreliable service
provider connections?
The software has a built in loadbalancing
functionality that is useful for two reasons. It can be used to handle
unreliable service provider
connections and to increase the message capacity. To handle unreliable service
provider connections we recommend to setup two simultaneous connections to the
same service provider and configure the software to do loadbalancing between
them.
To setup loadbalancing between two service provider connections, you should
assign the same service provider name to both connections in the configuration
form.
(You can have up to 10 connections assigned to a balanced connection.)
More information is available at:
SMS load balancing page
How can I increase the capacity of
an IP-SMS
service provider connection?
We
recommend to open two connections to the same service provider and configure
the SMS gateway to perform loadbalancing between them.
How can I increase the reliability
of this SMS gateway?
First, we should mention that this SMS gateway was
designed to work 24/7. It is very reliable. However, it might be possible that
there is a power outage, the hardware fails, or the network goes down or some
other external problem occurs (for example, the hard disk becomes full, the
memory becomes exhausted, etc.). To overcome these issues we suggest to run
two instances of the software on two different PCs in two different locations.
This way you can make the system more tolerant for failures.
If you
have two systems running, you can switch to the backup system manually in case
you experience problems. Automatic switching is also possible with external
software solutions.
How do you set daily and monthly
message throughput limits for SMPP Clients and other users (SQL user, E-mail
users, etc)?
You can use the credit limit handling feature for
this, but you must decide which period you would like to use. You can have
daily or monthly limits, but you cannot have both at the same time.
The credit limit handling feature allows you to set a limit for the
number of messages transmitted in a given period of time. This period can be
daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or all-time.
If you have 1000 SMPP Clients or other users
(SQL users, E-mail users) connected, how do you control the various message
queues? For instance, how many messages to send from each queue in turn?
The algorithm is round robin.
This means that in every round one message is taken
from each user's outbox. This way the users share the
sending capacity evenly.
This means that if the first user has 10000 messages in his outbox, while
the second user has only 100, the second user does not have to wait for the
transmission of the 10000 messages.
What is the scalability schema of
the software?
The software's core performance
depends on the underlying hardware. The scalability method we recommend depends
on the way the software is used. If a relatively small amount of users generate
a high volume of traffic, the hardware should be replaced to a more powerful one.
If the number of users is great and the amount of traffic generated by the users
is small, we recommend adding more PCs to the system.
In terms of
hardware metrics, the most important are CPU resources and memory. For high
volumes of traffic multicore and multiprocessor PC-s are recommended, because
the software uses multiple threads to handle service provider connections, so
it can utilize parallel processing. The amount of memory is another important
factor. If several GB of memory is installed, it allows caching data in memory
which improves performance. Network speed is usually not a limiting factor in
IP SMS connections. Although we recommend fast SCSI hard disks, the speed of
hardware is not very important, because with careful configuration harddisk
access can be limited to a minimum.
Please note that very often the limiting factor regarding message capacity is
the limitation of the service provider.
Does the SMS gateway support
clustering over multiple servers and how does it occur?
Clustering is required
if a large number of users need to connect to the service. An Ozeki
SMS Gateway cluster is a set of independent computers. Each computer
has Ozeki NG installed on it. Each Ozeki NG connects to the appropriate SMS
service providers independently and serves users independently of other members
of the cluster. Customer connections are distributed among the members of the
cluster in two ways: DNS based server selection or preselecting router.
The DNS based selection is simple, the DNS server returns IP addresses for the
DNS queries using the round robin algorithm. IP addresses are selected from the
pool of addresses assigned to the cluster. A preselecting router uses network
address translation to distribute load among the servers.
I cannot send more then 6 messages
per second, although I have a 10 MPS license. What can be the problem?
Possible reasons:
You cannot put messages into the outbox at the rate of 10 MPS
The message queues are overloaded in Ozeki NG SMS Gateway
The network bandwidth is not sufficient
The hardware performance of your PC is not sufficient
The SMS service provider cannot accept messages that fast
To give you some details. First check the size of your outbox. If you have an
outbox
filled with 100-2000 messages it means that you are able to provide messages
for sending at a sufficient rate. If the outbox size is between 0-100 it means
that the Ozeki SMS Gateway system is often waiting for messages to be
transmitted. If you have a significantly larger outbox queue size, it means the
message source overloads your system.
If you have large number of messages (>100 000) in other queues, such as sent
items it might have bad effect on performance. In this case, please configure
the software using the Edit/server preferences form to remove old messages from
your system automatically.
If you have a 10MPS license it should be able to send 10MPS. It is not likely,
that this is the limiting factor. This performance can be decreased however
if you have several incoming messages. For example if you have delivery report
request configured for outgoing messages, that means you receive at least one
incoming messages for each sent message. This can limit sending speed.
The Internet connection can be also a limiting factor. High latency or an
overloaded connection can give you bad throughput. Please also note, that the
uplink is the key factor. When you purchase an Internet connection, such as
ADSL, CATV there is a good chance that you get good download speed, but poor
upload capacity. Make sure you have >256Kbps upload speed and you don't have
too other applications eating up the speed,
such as streaming video upload/download, skype, bittorrent, etc...
Another possible reason is hardware performance. If you have a powerful hardware
use the Windows task manager to see which processes are using your CPU. There
is a good chance you can identify a software that takes up the resources of your
system. Disk defragmentors, screen savers, antivirus software, automatic updates
can cause temporary performance problems on your host.
The most probable reason, is that your service provider's system is slower then
yours. On the SMPP service provider configuration form you can setup the
Window size. Please consult with your provider what is the window size you can
use. For example if the window size is set to 6, it means that a 7th message
will not be sent, until a submit response is received for the 1st message. This
can put a limit on sending performance.
