The Microsoft/IIS/SQL/Javascript application is a Web B2C interactive WYSIWYG configurator for custom business cards and stationary for a leading office products supply firm.  The application could not scale to beyond 100 users and was unreliable under moderate load.  The Customer was very unhappy and began planning to create an alternative site using a competitor.

Actions/Results:  By tuning IIS, tuning the NAS, upgrading and tuning the SQL database and server, adding 4 additional web servers, and making a few minor application changes to correct application "bugs", the application is now 50% faster, very reliable (99.6%+), and can scale to over 1600 simultaneous users with plenty of spare capacity.   The application has 3 straight months of 100% uptime, and the customer has decided to delay replacing the site.

Time to tune – 120 days.  Hardware costs avoided = $350K.   The software engineering team is now 80% focused on new development.  The client  IT staff did 80% of the work.

The application is a Oracle/PL/SQL/Powerbuilder client server application for a leading database marketing automation/analytics SaaS provider.  The system performs analytical modeling of retail sales data and automated marketing campaign management for high end retailers.  The infrastructure includes a 1TB Oracle database on an EMC SAN (storage area network), and multiple large HP Unix servers.   Some client jobs took 72 hours to run - and normally failed and needed to be restarted.  No spare capacity for special or “rush” jobs”.  High priced DBA always making Oracle changes to “fix” issues.  Limited capital budget.  Competitors attacking customer base.

Actions/Results: SAN was tuned using existing hardware, and Oracle database was tuned.   Job speed was increased more than 300% - same jobs ran in 24 hours, and ran without incident.  No application changes were made.  Avoided capital outlays of at least $1,500,000.  Dramatic improvement in customer satisfaction, competitiveness in the marketplace (customers wanted daily updates – versus weekly or monthly).  Created capacity to take on more business (revenue) without additional IT costs.  Client’s IT resources were made available to tackle high value projects, including adding new customers, and migrating other legacy applications to newer software and hardware, saving $1M a year. 

Total time to tune – 45 days; client IT staff did 75% of the work.

The technology environment was crashing ("down") 5 times a day!   All facets of the infrastructure were beyond expected service life and needed replacement.   Poor performing IT environment resulted in a 6 month backlog of work (crediting payments to policies, preparing accurate customer and agent statements, etc.), and resulted in poor service to agents and customers.   User frustration with the technology resulted in 67% annual turnover of new business and customer service staff!

Actions/Results – systematically tuned, and replaced the LAN, WAN, servers (AS/400 and Citrix/Windows Terminal Servers/Wintel), PC’s, and 30TB of storage (database and 170M documents), resulting in a 40% increase of productivity across 500 employees.

Upon completion of the last technology upgrade, the 6 month backlog of work was eliminated in 3 weeks and never recurred.

Customer Service became a competitive advantage and in the next 3 years the company grew new business revenues 660% (from $67M to $512M annually) while total company operating expenses were reduced 20% (due to greatly increased employee productivity), saving $20M a year.

Technology became “transparent” to users and customers, employee turnover was reduced from 67% to 12% annually, saving $5M a year.   No changes were initially made to the business applications, products offered, product pricing, or commissions.   

IT staff was reduced by 35%.  Remaining IT staff was utilized for new, value added projects, including consolidating 3 data centers, creating a datamart, print reduction of 6000 reports, automated policy assembly, "perfect" electronic applications, a new agent portal, etc.

Time to tune – 400 days.   The client IT staff performed 80% of the work.

A provider of custom printed products (business cards, stationary, forms, etc) with a web site integrated (shared shopping cart) with it's largest customer - a leading office products supply company.

The application platform consists of Microsoft IIS/.Net/SQL/Java, and was very slow and unreliable.  See the list of reported downtime from July 2007 thru April 2008:

The client was VERY unhappy with the stability (down 54 times in 10 months!) and the performance of the environment - it often took more than 30 seconds to generate a preview image of the customized product and display on the screen, and often times the result was the "red x" error, when the image generation had failed.  The IT staff had tried for YEARS to stabilize the site, but with no positive results.  The client had announced that they were going to bring in a competitor and create a similar application in-house, effectively ending the business relationship.

Actions/Results: Web and proof servers were tuned, storage SQL database was tuned, storage was tuned, network was tuned.

The application has achieved 100% planned uptime for 4 straight months.   The customer is reconsidering moving the business in-house or to a competitor.

Client’s IT resources are now available for new projects, rather than constant "fire fighting" of the application.

Total time to tune – 55 days; client IT staff did 70% of the work.

The Linux/Apache/Jboss/Javascript/MySQL application is a Web B2B interactive WYSIWYG custom stamp and sign product configurator, tightly integrated (shared shopping cart) with leading office products supply firms.  The application could not scale to over 100 users and was unreliable under load.

Actions/Results:  By upgrading and tuning the MySQL database, adding some new storage hardware ($20K), tuning Apache, and making a few minor application changes, the application is now proven to scale to over 1,245 simultaneous users (see below) with plenty of spare capacity.   The application has 9 straight months of 100% uptime.

Time to tune – 65 days.  Hardware costs avoided = $450K.   The software engineering team is now 95% focused on new development.  The client  IT staff did 80% of the work.

Custom, client server system for 120 employees in 4 remote locations.  Components included a Visual Basic like language, multiple FoxPro databases, and 10 Windows Terminal Servers/Citrix.  The system was very slow and unreliable (crashing 3-4 times a day), suffering index corruption and lost data.

Actions/Results:  Tuned/upgraded Wide Area Network and Local Area Networks, upgraded the database server, and added more terminal servers.   Performance of the database increased 900%.  User productivity improved 50%.

The application is now stable, and development work is focused on improving functionality (customer extranet), data quality (ensure clean data is entered into the system), and migration from FoxPro to SQL server to provide much higher capacity, performance and reliability.

Time to tune – 90 days.  Hardware costs avoided = $500K.   The client  IT staff did 60% of the work.

A provider of outsourced Customer Loyalty Program administration for a national, retail chain using a AccuCobol/ISAM/Unix/EMC platform.

Some client jobs took 24 hours to run - business needed to be able to offer "real-time" updates on points earned by a customer.   IT staff consumed keeping systems running rather then developing new functions.  Very Limited capital budget.  Competitors attacking customer base.

Actions/Results: EMC SAN was tuned using existing hardware.   Job speed was increased 1800% and jobs ran without incident.  No application changes were made.  Avoided capital outlays of at least $500,000.  Enabled service to be upgraded from weekly to daily data updates.

Created capacity to take on more business (revenue) without additional IT costs.  Client’s IT resources were made available to add new customers, and migrate other legacy applications to newer software and hardware.

Total time to tune – 20 days; client IT staff did 90% of the work.