FMK2019 FileMaker Performance Update 2019 by HOnza Koudelka

10. FileMaker Konferenz | Hamburg | 16.-19. Oktober 2019
www.filemaker-konferenz.com
Performance Questions, Test Results, and Recent Experience

HOnza Koudelka
FileMaker Performance Update 2019

FileMaker Performance Update 2019 | HOnza Koudelka
HOnza Koudelka
• Co-founder and co-owner of 24U Software, 
FBA Platinum Member

• Developing FileMaker solutions since 1991

• FileMaker 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 
Certified Developer

• Team of other certified developers

• Winner of the FileMaker DevCon 2015 Developer Cup

• FileMaker Mad Dog Award 2011 winner

• Mad Optimizer and Achiever of the Impossible…

• Vendor session speaker at FileMaker DevCon, spoke at Pause[x]London and
Pause[x]Berlin, and remotely at PauseOnError Portland

• FileMaker Konferenz 2016, 2017, and 2018 speaker

Agenda
• Key Discoveries from Previous Years

• Automated Test Results

• Recent Experience & Under the Hood

• Benchmarking Techniques

• Optimization Techniques

• Questions & Answers

Key Discoveries from Previous Years
• Large amounts of text

• Container vs text (danger of Base64)

• Server-side scripts considerations

• Spider vs Anchor/Buoy vs Selector-Connector

• Structure impact on Set Field performance

• Slow network impact

• Layout rendering

• Expensive objects

• Conditional formatting

• Relationship sorting

• Data API vs PHP API

Why Performance Lab?
• Perceived speed defines what’s important
• Technical speed makes things possible

Huge Amounts of Text Not Good

Beware Base64
• Real experience from a customer

• Huge containers can be stored as text

• Doing so can have fatal impact on performance

PSOS is a FMS Client

FMSE shares resources with FMS
Indexed Unindexed

Spider vs Anchor/Buoy vs Selector-Connector
nav_code
NAV_selecte
PREFS_org
account_nam
PREFS_user
gTaskCont
GLOBALS_to
context
TASKS
EVT_sessions_to_session_signup
g_Registrant_relationship_code
NRRTS_PREFS_registrant_code
fk_party_ID
NRRTS_people_registrant_link
AS_parent_organizations
AS_branch_organizations
AS_employees
g_nav_code_
g_current_a
NAV_navigat
AS_address_SHIP
AS_address_PUBLISH
AS_address_RENEW
ethics
DMERC_assignments
NRRTS_PREFS
pk_party_ID
NRRTS_parties_by_registrant_link
fk_party_ID
fk_tag_ID
PUB_tag_link_ad
g_marketing_relatio…
PUB_prefs_advertis…
pk_party_ID
PUB_advertiser_parties
AS_organizations
fk_party_ID
PUB_advertiser_orgs
fk_party_ID
QUICKFIND_people_DMERC_display
pk_tag_ID
QUICKFIND_relationship_tags_display
pk_party_ID
QUICKFIND_parties_ADVERTISERS_display
GLOBALS_to_parties
AS_parties_receive_ad_invoice
AS_SSNs
AS_CCARDS
PUB_publications
GLOBALS_to_people
globals
FORMS_globa
signatures_to_form_globals
DISP_email_primary
DISP_people_self_by_global
globals_to_people_name_filter
EVT_events EVT_fees
EVT_sessions_to_events
AS_parties_subordinates
FON_apps_complimentary
fon_parties_complimentary
AS_voice_subordinates
FON_ledger_to_enrollment
PUB_ledger_expense
PUB_ledger_all
PUB_ad_rates
PUB_ledger_income
TAGS
GLOBALS_to_event_session_signup
AS_people
PUB_comm_outgoing_PUSH
AS_address_PHYSICAL
FON_enrollment
fk_event_ID
fk_party_ID
pk_registration_ID
gUnique_key
EVT_attendance
AS_parties_parent
FON_comm_outgoing_PUSH
EVT_comm_outgoing_PUSH
EVT_session_signup_to_attendance
EVT_session_comm_outgoin…
CECs
NRRTS_Credentialing
NRRTS_crts_history
AS_parties_selfjoin
AS_address_ALL
AS_address_FILTERED
AS_address_MAIL
PUB_parties_invoice_recipient
PUB_parties_ad_representative
AS_email_ALL
AS_email_PUBLISH
AS_email_primary
AS_phones_ALL
AS_phones_office_voice
AS_phones_office_fax
AS_phones_home_fax
AS_phone_voice_publish
AS_phones_fax_publish
AS_phone_tollfree_publish
COMMUNICATIONS_outgoing
AS_comm_outgoing_PUSH
CODE128E
TAG_LINKS_to_parties
fk_party_ID
fk_tag_ID
NRRTS_tag_link_registrant
FON_apps
NRRTS_comm_outgoing_PUSH
CEC_to_nrrts_apps_by_lookback_date
GLOBALS_to_nrrts_apps_by_renew_date
CEC_to_nrrts_apps_by_RESNA_effectiv…
NRRTS_parties_DMERC
NRRTS_ledger_to_apps
NRRTS_apps_self
NRRTS_app_recommend
CEC_to_nrrts_apps_by_app_ID
NRRTS_affiliations_to_current_app
fk_registry_affiliation_ID
is_current
NRRTS_apps_CURRENT
signature_graphics
NRRTS_apps
reg_period_begin_date
reg_period_end_date
NRRTS_apps_by_date_range
fk_party_ID
pk_nrrts_registry_ID
constant
cCurrentDate
NRRTS_affiliations
is_complete
nrrts_apps_COMPLETE
AS_address_RESIDENCE
DMERC_people
fk_3rd_party_adv_inv…
fk_parent_party_ID
pk_party_ID
gLocation_display_key
gUnique_key
constant
creator
database_status
fk_3rd_party_adv_inv…
fk_parent_party_ID
location_valueListBuil…
member_code_OLD
modifier
AS_parties
globals_to_letter_templates_CROSS
DMERC_region_link
AS_address_OFFICE
PUB_advertising
letter_templates
fSignup_attend_ADDRESS_mail
pk_party_ID
constant
fPARTY
fAttend_ADDRESS_office
CODE128E
fAttend_PERSON
fAttend_PARTY
fAttend_EVENTS
EVT_sessions_to_events
EVT_fees
fSignup_attend_PARTY
fSignup_attend_EVENT
fSignup_attend_EMAIL
fSignup_attend_PERSON
fSignup_attend_PHONE_office
fSignup_attend_PHONE_fax
fSignup_ATTEND
fSignup_SESSIONS
fRegistry_ADDRESS_mail
fRegistry_NRRTSAPP fRegistry_nrrtsapp_PARTY_dmerc
fRegistry_PERSON
fNrrtsapp_EMAIL_primary
fk_DMERC_ID
fk_party_ID
fk_registry_affiliatio…
pk_app_ID
is_current
reg_period_begin_d…
reg_period_end_date
constant
cApp_deadline_date
cLookback_date
fNRRTSAPP
fk_party_ID
pk_nrrts_registry_ID
constant
fREGISTRY
fParty_PERSON
fParty_ORG
fParty_PHONE_office_voice
fParty_PHONE_voice_publish
fParty_PHONE_office_fax
fParty_PHONE_fax_publish
fParty_PHONE_home_fax
fParty_EMAIL_primary
fParty_EMAIL_publish
fParty_ADDRESS_publish
fParty_ADDRESS_renew
fParty_ADDRESS_mail
fParty_ADDRESS_ship
fComm_PARTY
fComm_PERSON
fComm_ADDRESS_mail
fComm_PHONE_office_fax
fComm_PHONE_home_fax
fFon_PARTY
fFon_SELF_primary_comp
fFon_SELF_comp
fFon_party_PHONE_voice_publish
fFon_party_EMAIL_publish
fFon_party_ADDRESS_mail
fFon_party_ADDRESS_publish
fFon_party_PHONE_fax_publish
fFon_PERSON
fFon_fon_primary_comp_PARTY
fFon_fon_comp_PARTY
fFon_fon_primary_comp_A
fFon_fon_primary_comp_PE
fNrrtsapp_PHONE_officeFax
fNrrtsapp_ADDRESS_mail
fNrrtsapp_ADDRESS_renew
fNrrtsapp_PERSON
fNrrtsapp_TAGLINK_dmerc fNnrrtsapp_PEOPLE_dmerc
fNrrtsapp_REGISTRY
fNrrtsapp_RECOMMEND
fRegistry_PARTY
fNrrtsapp_PARTY
fk_party_ID
pk_fon_affiliation_ID
fFON
fNrrtsapp_CEC_AppID
fNrrtsapp_CEC_renewalDate
fNrrtsapp_CEC_lookbackDate
Enclosure
fk_party_ID
fCOMM
fk_event_ID
fk_party_ID
pk_registration_ID
constant
fATTEND
fNrrtsapp_SELF
fk_registration_ID
fk_session_ID
fSIGNUP
fComm_NRRTSAPP

Time to Perform Script on Server
Spider Anchor/Buoy Selector
Connector

Layout rendering

Layout rendering
• Repeating text field replaced button bar (86.8 % saved)

• TextColor replaced conditional formatting

• Optimized condition calculation

Slow network impact

24U Collector Optimization
10.9 x faster on LAN
2.4 x faster on 3G

Notifications are sent…
• from server to client as part of reply to next client’s request

• whenever a change is committed

• to every client having the file open (even hidden)

• about every record (unless entire table is changed)

• in about 32K chunks

• without actual record data

• another reason for using transactions

Data API vs PHP API
• PHP API is based on Tomcat

• Data API is based on Node.js

• Data API is supposed to be faster and more stable

• PHP API is deprecated and disabled by default

• Data API requires HTTPS only, PHP API allows HTTP

Data API vs PHP API

WPE after trying to fetch 300k records

Insanely Slow File
• Posted in FileMaker Community

• Blank layout

• Isolated table occurrence

• No records in any table

• Open locally in FileMaker Pro Advanced

• Creating 100 records in a loop takes…
30 seconds

Insanely Slow File
• 1037 relationships
• 1004 in this TOG
• 690 around this TO
• 7 hops longest path

Insanely Slow File

Insanely Slow File
1037
1116 1194
7516
9701
Total number
of relationships

Insanely Slow File
• large number of relationships all depend on the contents of one field

• FileMaker looks for all the possible combinations of relationships that can
be invalidated because that field changes

• That information is not in the join graph but in the field dependencies stored
as part of the field definitions.

• Roughly 27,000 possible joins that could be affected

• Higher level view code looks at all affected TOs and checks to see if any base
tables of those TOs are currently in any window and if there are any portals

• => Potential for optimization in future versions

FileMaker 17 & 18 Test Results
?
=

Automated tests performed
• Export & Import Records as tab delimited text

• Creating records with a lot of text
• Sort Records by indexed/unindexed field
• Perform Find
• indexed vs unindexed field
• small vs large result found set
• number vs text
• unique vs common values
• Replace Field Contents vs Looped Set Field
• Summary fields vs Aggregate functions vs ExecuteSQL

• Delete All Records, Truncate Table, Delete All Found Records (leaving one record)

• 5, 10, and 15 concurrent sessions
• File open/close and record creation speed with massive spider graph (© VincentL)
45 594

new tests
(219 918 total)

Test Equipment
• Mac Pro (early 2008)

• 2 x 2,8 GHz Intel Xeon

• 16 GB RAM

• Mechanical 7200RPM SATA drives

• Separate drive for data

• macOS 10.13 High Sierra
• FileMaker Server versions 17 and 18

• FileMaker Pro Advanced 17 and 18

New: FileMaker Cloud
• FileMaker Cloud for AWS 1.18

• 5-user license

• The minimum offered t2.medium instance

• Default settings

• Hosted in Frankfurt

• FileMaker Cloud 2

• FBA trial 5-user license

• Cloud Compute: Medium

• Hosted in USA

What was NOT tested
• Multiple users (concurrent sessions simulated by multiple server-side scripts)

• Working with container fields

• Exact amounts of data transferred between client and server

• FileMaker Go

• FileMaker WebDirect

• XML / PHP / ODBC / JDBC connections

• Two-machine deployment

• Disabled SSL

• Server-side schedules, including backup schedules

• Different cache sizes and other configuration differences

Insanely Slow File: Continued

Insanely Slow File: Continued
• Huge impact on locally opened file or over network

• Minimum impact on faceless server-side processing

• Number of dependencies has higher impact than
number of relationships

FMPA with Locally Open Database

FMPA with Locally Open Database
Using 9 x string start match

FMPA connecting to server

FMPA connecting to server
Best result
Worst result

Concurrent Sessions/Users
Simulated 
by PSOS

Test Set
• Export 10 000 records as TDT

• Import 10 000 records from TDT

• Various sorts

• Calculating totals

• Various finds

• Deleting all records

• Everything in 5 iterations

• Multiple PSOS sessions concurrently

• Each session accessing only its own records

Sessions Interference
Exports Imports Other Deletes

Exporting 10 000 records 5 times

Importing 10 000 records 5 times

36 minutes
6 minutes
16 minutes 16 minutes

27 hours
4 hours 
46 minutes
7 hours 
46 minutes9 hours

Replace in 10 000 records

Looped Set Field in 10 000 records

Find 90 % of records by unindexed field

Delete 10 000 records

Complete Test Set (575 tests)

FileMaker Cloud Compute Limits
This warning means you’re consuming CPU credits and your
FileMaker Cloud instance may become very slow soon.

Bonus Slides (Not Presented at FMK)
After I presented my session at FMK I had a chance to get more info from Claris
in relationship to the FileMaker Cloud performance. I also performed another
series of 34394 tests on both FileMaker Cloud 1 and FileMaker Cloud 2.

This extra information is so important that I have decided to add it here in the
form of a few extra slides for your benefit.

I have also amended the slide with links to external resources, so make sure to
check them out.

CPU Credits Explained
• Your cloud instance earns defined CPU credits every millisecond

• t2.medium earns 24 credits per hour

• Your cloud instance consumes credits depending on how much processing power it uses

• Every kind/size of instance has defined a baseline performance

• Baseline performance means the amount of CPU usage that consumes exactly the
same amount of credits that are earned

• t2.medium has 2 vCPUs and baseline performance of 20 % per vCPU

• When you’re utilizing less than baseline performance, you’re accruing credits

• When you’re utilizing more than baseline perofrmance, you’re spending credits

• You cannot accrue more than X credits

• t2.medium has the limit set to 576

• You accrue the maximum if you leave it idle for 24 hours

• When you have no credits left, your performance gets limited to baseline via throttling

CPU Credits Testing FM Cloud 1.18
This is how my tests utilized AWS CPU credits on FM Cloud 1.18.
I had enough accumulated CPU credits,
so my whole test finished before consuming them all.

CPU Credits Testing FM Cloud 2.18
On FM Cloud 2.18 however 
my tests were affected
by consuming all CPU credits

So I added this after each test…
…and executed another series of tests.
But this time, instead of having all tests run from within one main server-side script, I am now
running N simultaneous scripts for one test and don’t start the next test until all are done.

Standard Test Time in Seconds (FM Cloud 2)1x PSOS
1h40m 9h20m 4h
5x PSOS
10x PSOS
The chart shows time in seconds consumed by the “standard test”, reflecting the CPU power
actually available to the current script session. This seems like I have consumed all CPU credits
after the tests were running for about 11 hours.

Same test running on FM Cloud 1.18
This time my tests consumed the CPU credits even on FM Cloud 1.18

Standard Test Time in Seconds (FM Cloud 1)1x PSOS
1h45m 1h30m 10h45m
5x PSOS
10x PSOS
Just like with FM Cloud 2, 5 concurrent scripts seem to share the CPU, so standard test time is
longer than with 1 script, but after consuming all CPU credits it increases dramatically.

Recent Experience & Under the Hood
• Cache Allocation Setting

• Printing with Merge Fields

• SSD Performance Trap

• Master Record Lists & Found Sets

• Startup Restoration & Page Level Locking

Cache Allocation Setting
• Customer from Pensylvania turned to us to help them with a performance issue

• Their FileMaker Server was becoming so slow that they could not use it

• Restart always resolved it but only for a day or two

• Serving around 100 users, 48 out of 56 GB was used for FMS cache

• Decreasing the cache setting to 8 GB stabilized the server at max performance
2 GB
Windows
56 GB Total RAM
1 GB
Apps
48 GB
FMS Cache
5 GB
left for
FMS
Only 50 MB per user!





2 GB
Windows
56 GB Total RAM
1 GB
Apps
8 GB
FMS Cache
45 GB
left for
FMS
450 MB per user :-)





2 GB
Windows
56 GB Total RAM
1 GB
Apps
8 GB
FMS Cache
45 GB
left for
FMS
450 MB per user :-)
fmsadmin set serverconfig
cachesize=8192

Printing with Merge Fields
• Same customer wanted to improve printing speed

• Report layout was taking up to 3 minutes to print

• Nothing obvious to optimize in the script

• Same customer wanted to improve printing speed

• Report layout was taking up to 3 minutes to print

• Nothing obvious to optimize in the script
01 min 52.319366 sec

3.446686 sec

SSD Performance Trap

SSD Performance Trap
0
125
250
375
500
130 120 110 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130
Write speed depending on empty space on iSystem (iWork had 95 GB free all the time)
Writepseed(MB/s)
Space available on iSystem (GB)

Record Lists & Found Sets
• Record lists represented as bitmaps

• Not one bitmap for all records - sparse list of tagged bitmaps

• Each bitmap is tagged with its starting row key

• No bitmap if records are too sparse

• One record takes at least 1 bit and at most 8 bytes

• You would have to create over 512 trillion records to reach the max

• 4 bytes average under 4 million records

• Creating and deleting records can have impact on performance

• Significant only when there are many sparse records

• Deleting all records from a table should recover initial performance

Record List in Detail (simplified)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Starting Record ID Records Bitmap
1 11111111111111111111111111111111
2 bytes 32 bits = 4 bytes
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32
6 bytes total

2 4 5 7 9 10 11 12 14 15 16
2 1011010111101111110110111011
2 bytes 28 bits = 4 bytes
17 18 19 21 22 24 25 26 28 29
6 bytes total

2 14 15 16
2 1
17 1110110111011
4 bytes 1 + 13 bits = 3 bytes
17 18 19 21 22 24 25 26 28 29
7 bytes total

2 14
2 1
17 1110110111011
4 bytes 1 + 13 bits = 1 + 2 bytes = 3 bytes
19 21 22 24 25 26 28 29
7 bytes total

Startup Restoration & Page Level Locking
• New features of FileMaker Server 18

• FileMaker DevCon 2019 session: 
Under the Hood Exploring FileMaker Server 18’s Performance Features [SHA06] 
Mainly from the 43rd minute

• Enabled or disabled together

• Positive impact - User requests not waiting in queue

• When accessing different pages

• Negative impact - Change commits taking longer - there’s more to do

• Dedicated SSD for restoration log recommended

• Serious issues reported as of 18v2

• Temp file corruption

• Persistent lock on client disconnect

• Restoration not happening after killing fmserverd

Page Level Locking in Detail
User 1
User 2

Benchmarking Techniques
• Scripts

• 24U FM Bench

• Get ( CurrentTimeUTCMilliseconds )

• Calculations

• 24U FM Bench

• Toolbox_GetTimestamp (microseconds)

• Layouts & other

• Unstored calculations + OnTimer script trigger

• Binary Splitting

• Top Call Stats

• Network Link Conditioner

• NetworkMonitor Tool

Top Optimization Techniques
• Remove it if you don’t need it

• Script layouts

• Virtual List

• Perform Script On Server (or server-side queue)
• Pre-calculated summaries

• Simpler relationship graph

• Calculated text color instead of conditional formatting

• Card window instead of popover

• Avoid too many button bars

• Sort portal instead of relationship

• New table with fewer fields

• Conditional Set Field

• Transactions (Look for Todd Geist’s articles and videos)
• Local File Editing (“Being Optimist in Pesimistic World” by Vince Menanno)

More resources
• FileMaker Community > Search for Performance

• FileMaker DevCon Session Recordings, especially Under The Hood sessions (youtube.com/claris)

• Skeleton Key: “Improving FileMaker Custom App Performance” (https://youtu.be/D7LmguEcStY)

• FileMaker Transactions by Todd Geist (ModularFileMaker.org)

• “Decreasing FileMaker Network Traffic” by Vince Menanno (FileMakerProGurus.com)

• FileMaker Optimizers LinkedIn Group (FMOptimizers.com)

• 24U FM Bench (FMBench.com)

• Big-O Cheat Sheet (bigocheatsheet.com)

• A Gentle Introduction to Algorithm Complexity Analysis (discrete.gr/complexity/)

• Enabling HTTPS Without Sacrificing Your Web Performance by Billy Hoffmann 
(https://zoompf.com/blog/2014/12/optimizing-tls-handshake/)

• AWS CPU Credits and Baseline Performance for Burstable Performance Instances 
(https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/burstable-credits-baseline-concepts.html)

• Ask for consultation at honza@24uSoftware.com or 24usw.com/consult

Feedback
24usw.com/pfup

Vielen Dank unseren Sponsoren
Danke für das Bewerten dieses Vortrages

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