NORTHSTAR CONSORTIUM DESTINY SYSTEM SLOWNESS: WHAT CAN I DO?
There are any number of reasons why you might experience slowness on Destiny at any given point in time. Slowness in connecting or processing is likely to do with the level of bandwidth available at your school and how that bandwidth usage is managed and monitored. Bandwidth issues can occur either on the wide area network coming into the district and/or on the local area network within the district. There may also be a difference if your school district receives access to the Internet through a dedicated network or whether you rely on the commercial Internet.
The reason slowness on Destiny is not likely to be a problem with the server at Region 1 is because server functions, capacity, and connections are monitored daily by Region 1 staff. We have set up the Destiny server to allow scalability for adding new North Star Consortium members, so the number of members using the server is also not the problem at this time—the server is sized appropriately to the number of users. When a problem exists with the server, in our experience, it is more likely to impact everyone on the system, not just a selection of districts. The slowness currently experienced by some of you is more likely to be a wide or local area network bandwidth or local computer issue. If it was due to the server, we would have been hearing from everyone on Destiny that the system was down, slower than usual, or not working. No matter where the problem is occurring, however, we want to get to the bottom of it and help you solve it.
Here are a few things we recommend if you are encountering a lag in connection time or slowness in Destiny:
1. Make sure you report the problem to your district or building technology coordinator using your local help desk process. It helps if you give some detail information to help them trouble shoot the problem. Things to note and tell your technology coordinator include:
· Does the problem seem to be only with slowness in using Destiny or is access to any other site on the Internet slow as well?
· How long has the problem been occurring?
· Is it occurring repeatedly at a specific time of day?
· Is the problem consistent – all the time – or intermittent? Do you notice it only during the school day or does it occur before and after school hours as well?
· What exactly is happening – connection or download/upload slowness, the computer freezes up, you smell smoke, or?
· Were you working fine before school opened and before students were on site?
2. You can also be proactive, and assist your technology coordinator by doing a trace route from the computer being used to the Destiny system website and see if the transmission is getting hung up along the way. You might also want to try some trace routes to other URLs you typically use to see if you are having issues with Internet traffic generally. If you want help interpreting your trace route results, send them to Mary Mehsikomer at mary@region1.k12.mn.us. Here are the instructions for running a trace route. The < symbol means to use a space:
· For Windows XP:
Click Start and then Run
Type in CMD and press Enter
In the command window, type 'tracert< IP ADDRESS or DOMAIN NAME> (without the quotes) and press the Enter key.
You can then click on select all on the results and then right click to edit, choose copy, and copy the results to a text file and save them if you want to build a history of the trace routes. Please be patient when waiting for the tracert command to complete, it may take several minutes. When you are returned to the command prompt, then the trace is complete.
·
For Windows Vista:
Click Start and in the "Start Search" field type CMD or COMMAND.
The search should find the cmd.exe program. Please right click on that program and select "Run as Administrator" to load up the command window.
In the command window, type 'tracert <IP ADDRESS or DOMAIN NAME (without the quotes) and press the Enter key.
·
For Mac OS X:
Go to the /Applications/Utilities folder and start the Terminal application.
Type traceroute <IP ADDRESS or DOMAIN NAME > > ~/Desktop/tracert.txt and press the Return key. A file will be created on your Desktop called tracert.txt that contains your trace route information.
Quit the Terminal application.
A completed trace route will look something like this:
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6002]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\Users\mary>tracert 172.25.12.50
Tracing route to w2k8srv1.region1.k12.mn.us [172.25.12.50]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms w2k8srv1.region1.k12.mn.us [172.25.12.50]
Trace complete.
This trace route tells me that it took 1 hop and 3 milliseconds to get from my computer to the Destiny server at Region 1.
To do a trace route to the Destiny server from your computer, trace to the following IP address: 216.239.28.20.
3. Have your technology coordinator check to make sure there are no firewall settings, filtering settings, or other security measures on your district local area network that might be snagging your Destiny traffic or slowing it down. We sometimes find that a district may be running a security application or updates to systems during the day that can be rescheduled for nighttime to alleviate the problem.
4. If your school has some type of bandwidth management or traffic routing device, check with your technology coordinator to make sure your Destiny traffic is set as a priority transmission.
5. Make sure you are using a browser that meets Destiny specifications. Follett recommends:
|
Operating system
|
Browser
|
|
Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
|
Internet Explorer® 6.0, 7.0
|
|
Windows XP
|
Firefox® 2.0.0.3
|
|
Windows Vista
|
Internet Explorer 7.0
|
|
Mac OS 10.2/3
|
Firefox 2.0.0.3
|
|
Mac OS 10.4
|
Safariâ„¢ 2.0
|
|
Linux 8.6
|
Firefox 2.0.0.3
|
6. Make sure the computer(s) being used are running at maximum capacity – clear out the Internet cookies and temp files, and clean up the hard drive to ensure memory runs at capacity. Your technology coordinator can tell you how to do this if you are not familiar with these procedures.
7. North Star Consortium districts who are also members of NW-LINKS can check their bandwidth graphs and the speed of their connections on the NW-LINKS network:
To see a graphical display of bandwidth traffic across connections:
To verify the speed of your connection:
- Go to http://tac.702com.net/support
- Click on "Bandwidth Test"
- The speed of your connection will be measured by a server on the 702 Network
- This test should be done on an otherwise quiet LAN
Those of you outside of the NW-LINKS network and served by another telecommunications network may have the capability to do these types of tests with your provider, so contact your Telecommunications Access Coordinator for your region or the technology coordinator in the school/district to find out how to test connection speeds and bandwidth use.
I hope this information helps. I would be happy to work one-on-one with anyone on trace routes or talk to your technology coordinator about other troubleshooting if needed. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have questions.
Mary Mehsikomer
Network Coordinator
NW-LINKS/Region 1
(218) 284-3117
mary@region1.k12.mn.us
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.