[FX.php List] Performance issues with FM's xml interface

[Dennis Crall]

Hello,

[I posted this note to the FileMaker Experts list last week, but since the
question involves FileMaker's XML interface, I thought someone on this list
may have encountered similar problems.]

We're in the process of upgrading solutions from FileMaker Server 5.5 to our
FileMaker 7 Server Advanced configuration. We've tried to follow best
practices, and for the most part the solutions are working well. We have
combined solutions with multiple files into a single file, and we run all
databases through Metadata Magic to fix any corruption.

Unfortunately, we have noticed some performance issues when using the XML
interface (e.g. FX.php). In some cases, the performance hit is only
moderate. Pages that used to load instantaneously now pause before they
return. However, in one solution (an FX.php site), we have pages that used
to have small waits (1-5 seconds) that now take over a minute. Obviously we
expect solutions to be faster under the new configuration. Our hardware is
fairly beefy.

In all cases, the databases are responsive through the FileMaker client
interface. And the performance issues are evident by making a straight http
request to the xml interface. The solution with the greatest performance
issue does use a large layout and has a couple of container fields. The
container fields hold images (jpegs and gifs) that are under 100k -- not
that the image size should effect the xml performance.

So I guess I'm looking for places to start. The problem does seem to be
general to the configuration, and possibly isolated to the xml interface.
Any advice on how to proceed is appreciated.

Thank you for your time,

Dennis Crall
ITS-Academic Technologies
The University of Iowa
http://at.its.uiowa.edu