OpenNTF DominoDefrag 2.2 : From 99% File Fragmentation to 0%
Filed Under (Tips and Tricks) by Marc Champoux on February-26-2010

Better Late than Never …
  

Patrick and I had noticed the DominoDefrag project on OpenNTF a while ago. Patrick had said to me “when you have a minute, test it out in the test environment”. Well, that was a long time ago and yesterday I noticed a week old post on PlanetLotus.org that version 2.2 of DominoDefrag had been released. So, I decided it was time to test it out.
  

The installation instructions are quite simple and extremely well documented so getting it up and running was just a matter of putting myself on Do-Not-Disturb for a couple minutes.
  

And The Results?
  

Seriously, give Andrew Luder, the creator of DominoDefrag a medal. Give him something. Anything. The results are nothing short of amazing!
  

For example, in my test environment, the File Fragmentation went from 91% to 31% on the 1st pass. After a 2nd pass it went down to 30%. I checked and I realized that the 30% left were files that were not Domino databases so I ran the usual Windows Disk Defrag utility and it brought the File Fragmentation down to 0%. Simply put: amazing!
  

Also, while Domino Defrag was running in my test environment, I was checking the server console to see which database it was defragging. And for test purposes (because I really don’t care about the data in the test env.), I opened certain very large databases when it was defragging them. I even added/deleted documents in those databases *while* they were being defragged and didn’t notice any performance hit. Once again … amazing!
  

And maybe it’s me but the database operations, i.e. opening a database, opening views, opening documents, editing documents, etc, etc was quickr and faster … too bad I had not done metrics tests on those database operations before to compare with the after.
   

So, after doing a bunch more tests in the test environment, I deployed it to my production servers.
  

In production, my busiest server had 99% File Fragmentation. It took all weekend but on the 1st pass, the File Fragmentation went from 99% down to 30%. Again, the 30% left were files that were not Domino Databases so I ran the Windows Disk Defrag utility and it brough the File Fragmentation down to 0%.
    

The screenshots below are from my test server … but see for yourself the results in a Test environment and imagine the results in Production (they’re amazing):
   

DominoDefrag - Before

DominoDefrag - After it has ran once and defragged all the NSFs, NTFs and Full-Text Indexes

DominoDefrag - Final Result after using the Windows Disk Defragmenter to clean up all the other files on the D: drive

In Conclusion …
  

Seriously, anyone dealing with a slow server should consider installing this on their server. Of course, test it out in your test environment before!
  

Thanks for reading!
  

Marc

(6) Comments    Read More


Comments
Adam Osborne on February 27th, 2010 at 12:11 am #

Hi Marc,

The benefits of defragging are amazing and if you leave Domino to “do its own thing” you’re are going to end up with a mess if you don’t have a defragmenting product.

Back in August 2008 we decided to make a Domino specific product to fix this problem “defrag.nsf” and then we enhanced it to “prevent the problem”.

It is really great that people are starting to recognise the benefits of defragging. For a long time a lot of people – particularly SAN administrators would not recognise the issue.

The benefits are real – enjoy.

Andrew Luder on February 27th, 2010 at 7:45 pm #

Hi Marc,
thanks for your feedback.

As Adam’s started the history lession – back in early 2009 the driver for developing DominoDefrag was because the government department I provided consulting services to couldn’t afford “defrag.nsf”. Anyway, would you mind if I linked this into the testimony area of the DominoDefrag project?

And ditto – it’s good to see the community is really beginning to realize the benefits of defragging.

Marc Champoux on March 3rd, 2010 at 6:09 pm #

Hi Andrew (and Adam),

Andrew : You’re welcome … but you deserve everything I said (i.e. a medal or something) for this incredible project! DominoDefrag is awesome! And yes, you can link to this in the testimony area of the DominoDefrag project.

Adamns : Thanks for your reply. I had seen your product (Defrag.nsf) but the price is what kept me (actually my company) from purchasing it. I do understand that it has more features than DominoDefrag but price was the deal breaker.

Thanks to both of you for reading my post and your comments!

Marc

Steve Cannon on March 4th, 2010 at 12:32 pm #

We’ve been using DominoDefrag and have noticed that the server does seem more responsive. We’ve also seen a bottom out point where the non domino files still need to get defragged. I noticed that you ran the windows defragger. My understanding was that you couldn’t run that while the domino server was up? Is that wrong? Did you run it while your server was up?

Andrew Luder on March 15th, 2010 at 3:50 pm #

Hi Patrick,
appreciate the positive feedback :-) Have put link to this blog article on new version about page (v2.3) on DominoDefrag project.

Thanks
Andrew

Andrew Luder on March 15th, 2010 at 4:03 pm #

Hi Marc (and Patrick),
appreciate the positive feedback. :-)
Have put link to this blog article on new version about page (v2.3) on DominoDefrag project.

Thanks
Andrew

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