Overview of configuring the rich client for startup performance

For the Teamcenter rich client to start up and logon to the Teamcenter server, hundreds of megabytes of resources are loaded from the local hard disk into memory. In the warm case where the files were recently read into memory and remain in the RAM file cache of the operating system, this initial load can take a few seconds. However, in a cold case such as after reboot of the client computer, the limiting factor on performance is how quickly the bytes are read from the hard disk into RAM. The following situations negatively impact cold file read performance: Virus scanning software Exclude the entire TC_ROOT/portal folder and all of its subfolders from virus scanning, as well as the Teamcenter/RAC folder under the user folder where the rich client workspace folder is maintained. Large PATH statement Minimize the size of your system PATH environment variable and remove non-local folders from the PATH statement. Low hard disk space Ensure the hard drive where the rich client is installed remains defragmented and never exceeds 75 percent capacity. Running additional applications Minimize use of other resource intensive applications that are competing for pages in memory while the rich client starts. Starting the FCC at rich client logon Start the FMS client cache (FCC) at operating system logon and keep it running in the background so the rich client does not have to start the FCC while the rich client is logging on. One way to achieve near warm startup times in a cold situation is to warm the rich client files found under the TC_ROOT/portal folder using the file warmer capability of the FCC application. The file warmer loads the specified files from the hard disk to the disk cache, effectively changing them to a warm state. It is beneficial to configure file warmer functionality when all the following conditions exist at your site: Rich client startup is very slow. The FCC can be started when the user logs on to the operating system or can be manually started a few minutes before the rich client. The FCC can be kept active in memory until the user logs off. And when none of the following conditions exist at your site: The client workstation employs very fast media, such as solid-state disk (SSD) media. In this situation, startup is already as fast as possible. The client workstation supports multiple simultaneous users on Linux or Citrix server machines. There is not enough hard disk cache on the machine to cache the necessary rich client startup files. The hard disk cache requirement is related to the amount of memory (RAM) on the system more than the capacity of the hard disk media. Siemens Digital Industries Software recommends a minimum of 512 MB of available hard disk cache, which provides approximately 2 GB of RAM on Windows. There is significant competition for the available disk cache. For example, additional third-party applications are using a similar technique to warm their files. If all the requiring conditions are met, and none of the preventative conditions exist, configuring the FCC to warm rich client startup files can improve startup performance.