Optimizing system configuration for performance

Most Windows Operating systems come with some form of Virus Protection like Microsoft's Virus scanner with it's "Real-time protection". This causes all files to be scanned by the virus scanner at read time. It is meant to be unnoticed by the user, but for high performance, where we have to access a large number of files, this can slow the read down significantly. Therefore it is recommended to configure at least the cluster nodes to exclude specific files from the scanner. Based on the type of Virus Scanner deployed in your network, there are a few option on how to configure your systems for performance:

1. Data File exclusion by using extension

2. Process exception for HxMap Executables

The following section shows how these options can be configured for Microsoft Windows Defender.

The following recommended settings should all be controlled and put into place by your IT department.

Windows Defender Scanner Settings

This section only applies if you are using Windows Defender Real-time protection functionality. If real-time scanning is enabled then performance of the system can be significantly degraded (5 to 10x slower). This effect can also be seen using tools like 7zip when creating a zip of a large amount of data on disk.

Windows defender provides "Real-time protection" functionality, which will scan all files being opened by any application running.  This can have significant performance impact on the read of HxMap related files such as blocks, sessions, triangulation projects, etc.. On Windows 10 you can see what your settings are by going to the "Windows Defender Security Center" dialog. Then go into "Virus and Threat Protection" followed by "Virus & Threat protection settings". If Real-time protection is turned on, go to "Add or remove exclusions". You should see a list of file extensions that should be excluded by the real time scanner.  That list should contain at the minimum:

.hexbk, .hexcal, .hexgp, .hexjrs, .hexprj, .hexrad, .hexrs, .hexstp, .hextcx, .hextrg, .hextrs, .hexmsc, .hist, .log, .prj, .ipt, .fpt, .shp, .fgb, .xml, .xsd, .apr

For a more performance oriented set up we should also add the larger image and point cloud binary formats:

.hspc, .hspc.pack .las, .laz, .tiff, .tif, .rnv, .sol

Most IT departments will likely not want to allow file formats like *.jpeg, as there have been a number of exploits made using specially crafted JPEG images.

Ideally, beside the cluster nodes, establish these exceptions also on the Network Storage servers. as they will be running the virus scanner too.

A faster approach, approximately 2x faster, is to use process exceptions instead of file exclusion. You can use wildcards to add any executable file from a specific directory. Prerequisite for that approach is to setup your DP Pool in a way, that the HxMap Installation gets copied to a local drive on each processing node rather than use a shared network drive hosting the HxMap Installation, as this approach doesn't work on Network Shared drives.

C:\Program Files\Hexagon\HxMap\*

This will whitelist any process run by any application from the installed HxMap directory.