Optimize performance with OpenEdge features
- Last Updated: February 11, 2026
- 3 minute read
- OpenEdge
- Version 13.0
- Documentation
Each OpenEdge release includes performance improvements to the ABL, the OpenEdge database, and the Progress Application Server (PAS) for OpenEdge. In some cases, the benefits are automatically applied when you upgrade to the latest OpenEdge release. In other cases, the decision to enable performance features is yours .
OpenEdge provides the following performance enhancements by default:
-
Online before-image space management—Detects long-running idle transactions and prevents resource issues due to abnormal before-image file growth. This enhancement saves space and reduces performance issues due to bottlenecks in the BI file system. Use the
-biscantimestartup parameter to control how long scans of BI clusters continue.For more information see Before-image scan time (-biscantime) in Manage the OpenEdge Database and Tune OpenEdge database servers in Optimize OpenEdge Performance.
- Multi-threaded database server—Runs the same workload much faster. In some cases, in one-third of the time compared to a prior OpenEdge single-threaded database server. For more information about how to increase the speed of your OpenEdge application by moving to OpenEdge 12 releases, see Progress OpenEdge 12 Database Performance Improvements.
- Increased throughput with server-side join—Queries that join multiple database tables are now resolved in the database server rather than on remote clients. As a result, fewer records may be returned to the remote client, leading to faster performance. For more information, see Great performance out-of-the-box with server-side join and Server-Side Joins with Dynamic Queries
- Improved database startup parameter
defaults—Based on feedback from customer and real-world applications, the
default database parameters are designed to perform better for most customers.
For more information, see Default values for database startup parameters in Improve the Performance of the OpenEdge Database.
- Improved application startup parameters—Based
on feedback from customer and real-world applications, the Progress Application
Server for OpenEdge startup parameters are designed to perform better for most
customers.
For more information, see Initialize Progress Application Server for OpenEdge.
- Support for more sequences by default—Removes
the sequence limit, allowing database administrators to have additional sequences
required to maintain unique IDs.
For more information, see Default Maximum numbers of unique sequences in Improve the Performance of the OpenEdge Database.
- Reduced locking delays in buffer hash tables—Enables
database administrators to tailor the number of latches allocated for the buffer
pool hash table (BHT) entries which reduces locking delays and provides faster
access to data.
For more information, see Reduced locking delays in buffer hash table in What's New in OpenEdge 12.
- More relevant SQL query information in the
protrace.pidfile—Captures information required for debugging such as the username and database name, to gain a better insight into SQL application issues.For more information, see SQL Protrace crash reports in OpenEdge Data Management: SQL Development.
While the previous enhancements are enabled by default, the following feature requires that developers opt-in to use:
- Extend variable-length database extents
functionality—Allows database administrators to extend and mark
variable-length
ai,bi, anddbextents as fixed and to create and pre-extend new variable-length extents. Extending or pre-extending the size of variable-length extents reduces overhead and improves run time by minimizing resource requests to the file system.For more information, see Extend Variable-length database extents functionality in Improve the Performance of the OpenEdge Database.