Case Study: QAD .Net UI Implementation

Performance Tuning and Challenges On Windows OS

Nancy Dahl, MiTek IndustriesGary Yang, Logan Consulting

/ Roundview Technologies

About MiTek Industries MiTek is the world's leading supplier of state-of-the-art engineered products and

services for the building components industry.

MiTek has operations in more than forty countries on six continents. The company has been a subsidiary of Warren Buffett's Berkshire-Hathaway Inc. since 2001.

QAD for North America is hosted in our Chesterfield, Missouri corporate headquarters.

MiTek is one of QAD’s Strategic Accounts. We’ve been using QAD since 1999.

Current QAD version is 2008 SE.

QAD is deployed via Citrix.

QAD .Net UI

About Gary Yang And Roundview Technologies

Have been a QAD consultant / solution architect since 1997

Started own consulting business in 2010

Pioneer in QXtend integration framework implementations with the first successful project in QXtend and a number of large scale projects, such as Eaton, Visteon, Avery Dennison, MiTek, Nexteer, Tower, Freudenburg-NOK, Harris, Physio-Control (Medtronic), Superior Industries, A. O. Smith, Excel Industries, Sugar Foods

Specialize in advanced / new QAD technologies, .Net UI, CSS, Enterprise Financials, Performance Tuning, Non-Intrusive Customizations

Have team of consultants in China available globally

QAD .Net UI

QAD .Net UI

QAD Project At MiTek Industries MiTek acquired USP Structural Connectors and the conversion to QAD for USP

started with a Gap Analysis in July 2011 & Project Kick-off in February 2012.

USP was adding 150 QAD users & 70 Eagle rfExpress.

USP added about 8,000 items, 6,000 customers, & higher transaction volume vs. MiTek had historically.

Required the Configurator module for Configure To Order items.

New project using QXtend to load Pricelists.

Pilot site went live 10/1/12 in Canada and all of 7 US sites live 1/1/13.

QAD .Net UI

Challenges We Had On QAD EA At MiTek Industries

Upgraded to a new server in December 2012.

Performance & Record locking problems (reports of 4 minutes to enter 1 line of a sales order).

The server showed many processes running, however CPU usage was always under 10% and physical memory usage was around 20%.

Go live date we looked at adding an additional Tomcat server.

Requested users limit their number of maintenance sessions.

Had run-away processes that Tomcat was not shutting down.

QAD .Net UI

Software Environment Windows Server 2008R2 Enterprise OE 10.2B07 QAD 2008SE .Net UI 2.9.4 (Upgraded from 2.7) CSS 4.1.1 QPS 2.4 QXtend 1.7.2 Configurator 5.3 Eagle Data Collection Software Vertax Corvu

QAD .Net UI

The Unique Challenges In Windows Environment

Database Server Performance Stability

Tomcat Server How To Set The Heap Size – tomcat6w.exe, NOT setenv.bat Limit On Heap Size With Single Tomcat Instance (1.5GB)

Telnet Server Georgiasoftworks Tends To Have Excessive Hand Shaking

Supportability Most QAD Customers On Linux / Unix Platforms

Windows Scheduler Premature Termination Of Batch Process

QAD .Net UI

Other Challenges

High User Count Probably One Of The Largest Windows QAD Customer By User Count

Record Locking Issues Difficult To Monitor And Respond To

Tomcat Connection Pool Session Control Connection Session May “Overwork”

AppServer / WebSpeed Broker Monitoring

QAD .Net UI

Database Server

Main Problem Was DB Server Abnormal Shutdown

Root Cause Is The Process Terminated With Micro-transaction Open

Avoid Sudden DB Shutdown Problems Use Client Server Mode For Hand- Held Devices Do Not Let Windows Scheduler Terminate A Job

Use OE Explorer (Browser Version) To Manage DB and Processes

QAD .Net UI

Tomcat Application Server

One Tomcat Instance Cannot Support 400 Users Load Balance 3 Tomcat Instances

Tomcat Heap Size Setting NOT in setenv.bat On Windows, Use tomcat5w.exe The setenv.bat Does Not Work

Garbage Collection Monitoring Set As Catalina Option Know When Memory Is A Problem

Tune The “Hidden” maxuses Parameter Avoid Overworking Sessions Must Edit The connectionManager.xml File

QAD .Net UI

Tomcat Application Server

Setting Heap Size (Memory)

QAD .Net UI

Tomcat Application Server Setting “maxuses” Parameter

QAD .Net UI

Georgiasoftworks

Telnet Server For QAD .Net / QXtend On Windows

Telnet Session Start Up Script: k_start.bat The Environment Variables Are Significant

Add “Gwtn Monitor” Local Group For Monitoring Georgiasoftworks Sessions

QAD .Net UI

Record Lock Monitor And Resolution Utility

QAD .Net UI

Future Directions

Move To Linux Platform For Scalability And Stability

Fail-Over / Load Balance

DR Center

OE Replication

QAD .Net UI

Questions?Nancy Dahl At NDahl@mii.com

Gary Yang At gary.yang@roundviewtech.com / LinkedIn