[cisco-voip] CCM Web Page performance issues, aka 'Loading, Please Wait' (a rant)

[Andre Beck]

Hi,

On Fri, Oct 05, 2007 at 07:27:47AM -0500, Jonathan Charles wrote:
> So, I am curious why all of us are putting up with this.

Because there is no choice? 4.x is severly dated and we want BLF and
other features...
 
> For years we were all told that Linux was superior, that Linux was how
> a real web server should function...

And it is. The problem here is, we are not talking about a web server.
 
> Now, we have CCM 5 and CCM 6... and the web server performance, is,
> er, well, how do we put this...
> 
> Here we go. It is far worse than anything Microsoft has ever released.

This is missing the target.

Do you really *know* what the pure web server performance in this setup
is? Or are you just concluding it from the web UI in your browser that
feels like supergiants beeing sucked through nanotubes?

> I think Microsoft BOB would be a better web server than whatever crap
> is on the backend of this RedHat monstrosity.

Bait. But I bite. Yes, there is a monstrosity. No doubt. Seeing how
this rather obsolete OS base (RHEL 3 aka Linux 2.4 - this is as old
as W2k) is flattened by an insanely obese application server is no
fun. But this is not in much way caused by the underlying OS (it might
be in some way - availability of midlayer software Cisco wants to use
like a mostly MSSQL compatible DBMS). The infrastructure on top of the
OS would flatten Windows as well. (BTW, wasn't 6.0 supposed to run on
both OS again? Anyone who can compare to Win2k3?)

And when it comes to the web UI, I actually fear that most of the
sluggishness is happening at the *browser* side, with reliance on
JavaScript and even Java Applet code. Something is popping up these
silly wait splash screens, and it costs more performance than just
plain dumping the pages IMO.
 
> In CallManger 4.3, using Microsoft WINDOWS(!!!!!!)  IIS and Cisco
> Tomcat, I can scream through all of the web pages; do DB reads in
> nanoseconds; do DB inserts almost as quick, and I have never seen a
> message on my web browser saying, 'Loading, Please Wait'

You've never seen this strange Java Proxy Applet that blocks your page
access for seconds? Strange. I cannot scream through 4.x pages either,
with this artificial roadblock in the way.
 
> I mean, seriously, this is godawful slow.

Yes, it is.

I was plainly shocked to see how long it takes for the RHEL stuff
to just boot to the prompt (my Debian servers with half the resources
boot way faster), but *then* to see it take a *full* *other* *nine*
*MINUTES* for the application stuff (DB, CCM et all) to come up. It
is indeed pathetic.

> I just installed CCM5.1.3 on an HP 7845, 4GB of RAM, dual dual core
> Xeons...

Wasting a Gig ;)

> and all I see at every mouse click is 'Loading, Please Wait'..

Yep. Mostly you just wait for the JavaScript code to display this
message beeing downloaded, beeing executed, messing with the CSS to
display an inpage Ad^WSplash, messing again with the CSS to undisplay
it again, and then actually showing the results.

> Is Cisco punishing us for something? Did we offend them in some way? I
> am at a point where I am wondering if I should tell customers about
> these performance issues prior to picking a version ('if you want to
> be able to administer this and not slash your wrists, waiting for the
> home page to load, you may want to go with 4.3...') because I am tired
> of hearing about it afterwards...

I'm telling customers that  each new version bloats badly compared
to the older ones (which, we don't want to forget, were enourmous bloat
in the first place, my first 3.3 CCM on W2k was equipped with at-that-time
plenty 1.5GiB and trying to run CRS flattened it badly - this silly thing
alone allocated 450MiB of RAM).
 
> Seriously guys, I mean, this pretty much kills whatever argument you
> Linux freaks had that this was better than Windows...

It doesn't. Sadly, it kills any welcoming expectations we Linux "freaks"
had for CCM on a free and open platform. It got worse.

> add the whole  SFTP requirement,

It's just an entirely silly decision by *Cisco* to close the platform
into "Appliance mode" instead of allowing people at least the same
freedom of tinkering with the OS that we had on Windows. All these
complications would have been unnecessary. But it was crippled
intentionally, and now I can't even debug problems myself anymore but
have to input convoluted commands at the lobotomized admin "shell".

> and you can see why the Microsoft side won this argument...

Which argument did MS win? Not the one in Europe. SCNR ;)

Andre.
-- 
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-> Andre Beck    +++ ABP-RIPE +++    IBH Prof. Dr. Horn GmbH, Dresden <-