Case Study: QAD .Net UI
Implementation
Performance Tuning and
Challenges On Windows OS
Nancy Dahl, MiTek Industries
Gary Yang, Logan Consulting
/ Roundview Technologies
QAD .Net UI
About MiTek Industries

MiTek is the world's leading supplier of state-of-the-art engineered products and
services for the building components industry.
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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.
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QAD for North America is hosted in our Chesterfield, Missouri corporate
headquarters.
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MiTek is one of QAD’s Strategic Accounts. We’ve been using QAD since 1999.
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Current QAD version is 2008 SE.
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QAD is deployed via Citrix.
QAD .Net UI
About Gary Yang And Roundview Technologies
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Have been a QAD consultant / solution architect since 1997
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Started own consulting business in 2010
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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
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Have team of consultants in China available globally
QAD .Net UI
QAD Project At MiTek Industries
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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.
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USP was adding 150 QAD users & 70 Eagle rfExpress.
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USP added about 8,000 items, 6,000 customers, & higher transaction volume vs.
MiTek had historically.
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Required the Configurator module for Configure To Order items.
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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.
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Performance & Record locking problems (reports of 4 minutes to enter 1 line of a
sales order).
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The server showed many processes running, however CPU usage was always under
10% and physical memory usage was around 20%.
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Go live date we looked at adding an additional Tomcat server.
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Requested users limit their number of maintenance sessions.
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Had run-away processes that Tomcat was not shutting down.
QAD .Net UI
Software Environment
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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
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Database Server
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Tomcat Server
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Georgiasoftworks Tends To Have Excessive Hand Shaking
Supportability
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How To Set The Heap Size – tomcat6w.exe, NOT setenv.bat
Limit On Heap Size With Single Tomcat Instance (1.5GB)
Telnet Server

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Performance
Stability
Most QAD Customers On Linux / Unix Platforms
Windows Scheduler
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Premature Termination Of Batch Process
QAD .Net UI
Other Challenges
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High User Count
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Record Locking Issues
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Difficult To Monitor And Respond To
Tomcat Connection Pool Session Control
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Probably One Of The Largest Windows QAD Customer By User Count
Connection Session May “Overwork”
AppServer / WebSpeed Broker
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Monitoring
QAD .Net UI
Database Server
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Main Problem Was DB Server Abnormal Shutdown
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Root Cause Is The Process Terminated With Micro-transaction Open
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Avoid Sudden DB Shutdown Problems
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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
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One Tomcat Instance Cannot Support 400 Users
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Tomcat Heap Size Setting NOT in setenv.bat
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On Windows, Use tomcat5w.exe
The setenv.bat Does Not Work
Garbage Collection Monitoring
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Load Balance 3 Tomcat Instances
Set As Catalina Option
Know When Memory Is A Problem
Tune The “Hidden” maxuses Parameter
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Avoid Overworking Sessions
Must Edit The connectionManager.xml File
QAD .Net UI
Tomcat Application Server
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Setting Heap Size (Memory)
QAD .Net UI
Tomcat Application Server
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Setting “maxuses” Parameter
QAD .Net UI
Georgiasoftworks
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Telnet Server For QAD .Net / QXtend On Windows
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Telnet Session Start Up Script: k_start.bat
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The Environment Variables Are Significant
Add “Gwtn Monitor” Local Group
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For Monitoring Georgiasoftworks Sessions
QAD .Net UI
Record Lock Monitor And Resolution Utility
QAD .Net UI
Future Directions
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Move To Linux Platform For Scalability And Stability
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Fail-Over / Load Balance
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DR Center
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OE Replication
QAD .Net UI
Questions?
Nancy Dahl At NDahl@mii.com
Gary Yang At gary.yang@roundviewtech.com / LinkedIn