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Article #25264: General information on GFIX (sweep intervals slowing down performance)

Problem:
Why does the sweep operation slow the servers performance

Solution:
When running a sweep on a live database you should expect some 
performance loss.

In order for a sweep to do its job, it must make a complete table scan 
of every table in the database to determine if it can or cannot garbage 
collect the records.  This is a very costly operation, thus the performance hit.

NOTE:  A sweep can only garbage collect records that are marked committed 
prior to starting the sweep.  This means that any connections to the db that 
are in an uncommitted state will not be garbage collected.  To ensure that all 
records are garbage collected you must obtain exclusive access to the database.

Last Modified: 02-OCT-00