Troubleshooting

SRM SAAS Performance and Network Information

The SRM SAAS platform is an "Always On, Always Connected" application, that requires an uninterrupted Internet Connection. This is required in order to maintain database integrity of your company data.

If a network disconnect occurs that is longer than a few seconds this can cause a user 
session to become disconnected from the server, leading to errors in the SRM application.


There are five high-level sections where performance issues or network
disconnections can occur:

  1. Your Local Computer Workstation
  2. Your Local Network
  3. Your ISP
  4. The Internet
  5. Texada Software's Datacentre


If there is some form of communications failure at any of these points or a 
combination of points, the performance of the application can be impacted.


1: Your Local Computer Workstation

This is the Personal Computer (PC) that you use to access the SRM application though an Internet Web Browser.


A common cause of disconnects on a local workstation are the power settings on the PC. Depending on the available hardware and installed version of Windows, when a PC enters a standby state (screensaver, hibernate, power off the monitor, etc) the PC is often set to disable network connections. This will cause the SRM application to disconnect.

Managing your PC power settings depends on your local PC configuration, but the most commonly used OS version is Windows 10 at the time of this article creation. Please refer to this link for general information on PC power management settings: Power management. If you are unsure what kind of environment you are operating in or do not have local security access to these settings please contact your local Software/Hardware IT Group who manages your company hardware.


If your PC is using a WiFi connection, try using a wired (Ethernet) connection instead. While not a requirement, WiFi can be easier to disrupt than a wired connection.


2: Your Local Network

This involves all the hardware and software in your company's building/infrastructure that carries your company communications to the Internet. This includes but is not limited to: all cabling, switches, routers, WiFi routers, WiFi access points, servers, and modems. Each step of hardware and software should be checked to ensure it is not physically damaged, has all proper/relevant software updates and is fully functional.

Often a modem or router’s firmware can be out of date, leading to network performance/communication issues. Sometimes even just rebooting these components can resolve issues. Having a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) on all critical network hardware is also recommended.


Another common cause of performance issues/disconnects at the local network level is Bandwidth Saturation. Every network has a limit, that is determined by your network hardware and ISP (covered in the next session). Once that limit is reached, new requests sent from workstations can become significantly delayed or fail entirely.


For example: Company X has ten employees, and has a 20 Mbps Internet Connection for their office. Employee John is on his lunch, and loads up a HD video in YouTube. A full HD Video from YouTube can use up to 20Mbps of network bandwidth while it is playing, and the default settings of YouTube is to use as much available bandwidth as is available to provide the best quality video. In this situation, one employee is now consuming all available network bandwidth for the entire office. Now that the network has been saturated, other employees will notice slowdowns or outright disconnects in other applications. While this may not be directly noticeable while simply browsing the web, an always on application like
SRM will be negatively affected.

As a way of combating bandwidth saturation, some form of QoS (Quality of Service) policy or methodology can be applied to your network.

3: Your ISP (Internet Service Provider)


Once your Internet connection leaves your building, it becomes much harder to determine and troubleshoot network connection issues as neither you nor Texada Software has access to that infrastructure. Your first line of external communication will go through your ISP. Please ensure they are not experiencing any network issues themselves, either in the overall network or in the local hardware that serves your location.

It is also strongly recommended that as a business you are operating with a Business Class Internet Connection. While offerings vary from ISP to ISP, a Business Class connection often carries a guarantee of service, and is usually more reliable than a standard Residential or Home connection.


4: The Internet

This involves all of the network hardware and software that is used between your ISP and Texada Software's datacentre’s ISP. Depending on geographical location and dynamic network pathing, this can involve hundreds to thousands of kilometers of infrastructure.

Unfortunately this section is completely inaccessible to either you or Texada Software. Due
to the "self-healing" nature of the Internet, any network outages (that are not extreme) are often solved quickly or routed around. However until that repair is complete, even if it only took thirty seconds this could cause a disconnect in the SRM application.


5: Texada Software's Datacentre

Texada Software's Datacentre is located in Central Ontario, Canada.  We utilize a redundant connection to an Internet Backbone to ensure a constant, uninterrupted connection out to the world.  Idle clients will be automatically disconnected if they do not peform any action within the system after four hours.


Many different kinds of automatic alerts are setup to notify our Network and Support group of any event that could affect our Internet Connection or the performance of the hardware and software of the Datacenter. Every time we receive a report that a client is experiencing a performance or outage issue, the first item our Support group will confirm is that there are no current alerts, and if other clients are still connected to the system.

Once the general health of the Datacenter and the ISP are confirmed, we will then look at your local environment as best we can. This article does not cover every possible scenario for network troubleshooting. Please contact Texada Support if you are experiencing issues and we can examine your situation in detail and do everything within our control to provide a resolution.