QAD System Monitoring for Efficient Operations Derek Bradley – Performance Engineer, Architect, QAD Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems

2 The following is intended to outline QAD’s general product direction. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, functional capabilities, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functional capabilities described for QAD’s products remains at the sole discretion of QAD. Safe Harbor Statement Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems

3 This breakout session introduces best practices in managing and monitoring QAD systems – and how QAD can help Managing the technical infrastructure of complex computer systems is a challenge The needs and expectations of the users need to be balanced against the resources and requirements of the IT management team Introduction Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems

4 Database administrators Systems administrators Technical project managers IT management Survey Aim / Audience Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems

5 Keep the users and sponsors of the QAD software installation happy and productive -Up and down the supply chain Reliability Performance Visibility Reporting Best Practice Outcomes Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems

6 Reliability Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems

7 Use Highly Available Architecture -Along with well trained staff and good management systems HA systems employ fault tolerance, automated failure detection, recovery, testing, problem and change management Duplicate everything. - Eliminate single points of failure Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems: Reliability

8 High Availability Systems have the following technical design requirements -Heartbeat monitoring -Scripts or tools to start / stop / failover and failback the QAD application -Shared storage (SAN) -Non−Corruption of data when the failover occurs After imaging / replication High Availability Guidelines Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems: Reliability

9 Disaster Recovery Planning Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems: Reliability Disaster recovery planning (DRP) is essential for any company Of companies that have had a major loss of business data -approximately 40% never re-open -50% close within 2 years -fewer than 10% survive long term (source : Hoffer, Jim. "Backing Up Business - Industry Trend or Event." Health Management Technology, Jan 2001).

10 Tier 0 : No offsite data Tier 1:Offsite backup but no “hot” site Tier 2:Offsite backup and “hot” site Tier 3:Electronic vaulting Tier 4:Point in time copies - After imaging, disk flash copy Tier 5:transaction integrity - OE replication, disk replication Tier 6:zero data loss Tier 7:completely automated The Seven Tiers of Disaster Recovery Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems: Reliability

11 Disaster Recovery Objectives Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems: Reliability Working with the business, decide upon the following objectives -Recovery Time Objective (RTO) How long can you afford to be without your systems? -Recovery Point Objective (RPO) When it is recovered, how much data can you afford to recreate? -Degraded Operations Objective (DOO) What will be the impact on operations with fewer data centers? -Network Recovery Objective (NRO) How long to switch over the network?

12 Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems Performance

13 A Commonly Misunderstood Subject: What is Performance? Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems: Performance Responsiveness? High Capacity? Low System Requirements?

14 Users and IT support = application responsiveness Database administrators = database efficiency and potential bottlenecks Systems administrators and engineers = server capacity and utilization IT managers = user productivity, system availability, budgets and risk avoidance Roles and Responsibilities Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems: Performance

15 Slow and unresponsive applications Unexplained / random application freezes Batch processes fail to complete (in time) Lack of scalability Lack of capacity Typical Performance Problems Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems: Performance

16 Forrester Research has reported that among companies with revenue > $100 billion, nearly 85% reported significant application performance degradation Best Practices in Problem Management Nearly 85% of applications are failing to meet and sustain their performance requirements over time and under increasing load Impact of Poor Performance Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems: Performance

17 Lost productivity Lost confidence and credibility – Customers – End users Lost revenue Low morale Financial penalties Impact of Poor Performance Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems: Performance

18 Performance Engineering Methodology Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems

19 Establish performance objectives Identify critical requirements Define abnormal and normal conditions – Service level agreements Create a baseline Continuous monitoring and alerting – QAD monitoring framework Performance tuning Capacity planning and re-sizing How Do We Manage Performance? Performance Engineering Methodology

20 Unless performance is actively managed and benchmarked, user performance expectations are hard to quantify. “The system is running slow.” “It takes too long to log in.” What do these mean? Can we determine critical / objective requirements? Performance Objectives Performance Engineering Methodology

21 Using KPIs and performance requirements – Create a set of baseline measurements – Capacity requirements planning &trending Load testing tools may help with creating a baseline – Apache Jmeter – HP LoadRunner QAD Monitoring Establish a Baseline Performance Engineering Methodology

22 QAD Monitoring Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems

23 QAD Monitoring Monitoring QAD Systems

Ad Hoc Monitoring lacks transparency and can lead to emergency performance escalations Continuous monitoring allows -Advanced notice of developing problems -Trending against the baseline -Extra information to aid in problem solving -The ability to deliver KPI information to management on demand QAD Monitoring Monitoring QAD Systems 24

25 Holistic system monitoring Visual correlation of data Visibility into system trends and usage Ability to deliver KPI information on demand Powerful warning and exception alerting Reporting framework Scalable / flexible Key Features Monitoring QAD Systems

26 Technical Features Monitoring QAD Systems Non−intrusive, lightweight monitoring Technology agnostic -Can monitor any component in the QAD technology stack on any platform -Any supported database technology In built wiki with full documentation Industry standard open source components -Proprietary QAD integration pieces

27 Graphing and Trending Features Monitoring QAD Systems Allows graphing of numerical data for trending and analysis -Helps identify usage patterns and trends Enables visual correlation of data -Data stored in time series (RRD) database -Filter by time periods of 30m to 1 year -Template driven deployment

28 Whenever a pre-defined condition is met, an alert can be sent to one or more contacts - / Pager / Twitter / Phone / Chat -Warning, critical and unknown alert levels Recovery messages -Time zones, rosters Escalation paths -Template driven definitions Inheritance and overrides -Stores service level agreement data for reporting Alerting Features Monitoring QAD Systems

Reporting and Service Level Agreements (SLA) Monitoring QAD Systems 29

Mobile Device Support Monitoring QAD Systems * 3 rd party apps** webapp on appliance 30

31 Technology & Architecture Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems

Deployed as a virtual appliance (Linux VMware image) -No Open Edge or commercially licensed components installed -ESX ready or VMware Server ready version Security to monitored systems -Communicates with the monitored servers via trusted SSH relationships -Keys are stored on the VM and pushed to the remote servers Deployment Technology & Architecture 32

Technology agnostic: -it does not care what is being monitoring -the flexibility to monitor practically anything -version independent Integration templates for: -mapping to the QAD Architecture -Tomcat, Open Edge / other databases, Connection Manager, QAD business logic -any supported Operating System* -(Windows Support Currently Limited) Integration Technology & Architecture 33

34 On Demand customers Now 75 servers, 90+ environments, services Early adopters June 2011 General Release September 2011 Staged rollout Availability Technology & Architecture

35 Availability Technology & Architecture QAD Monitoring will be available to customers who -Are on current QAD Maintenance -Who agree to a technical Q-Scan Establish baseline system health Tailor QAD Monitoring to their needs Training

36 QAD Monitoring Contacts Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems Tony Winter (Director R&D) Paul Newton (Project Manager) Derek Bradley (Architect/Consultant)

37 Continued return on existing investment Faster response times Higher system availability Problem avoidance Metrics Affected Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems

38 Stop by the EXPO to discuss what QAD System Monitoring can do for your company Ask your account manager to arrange a Q−Scan Next Steps Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems

39 Tony Winter (Chief Technology Officer): Paul Newton (Project Manager): Derek Bradley (Architect/Consultant): Questions & Answers Managing and Monitoring QAD Systems

© QAD Inc 40