Tip of the Week 1 – IIS Application Pool Recycling

This guide was designed for use with Epicor ERP10 products, however applies to any and all IIS Application pools which you may wish to set to auto recycle.

To Set Automatic Application Pool Recycling:

  • Open IIS on the App Server
  • Under Application Pools, select the one you wish to configure:
  • On the right pane click Recycling (not Recycle!)
  • The Edit Application Pool Recycling Settings window appears, one recommendation would be to set a Specific Time out of business hours, and outside of any other ERP processes e.g. MRP.
  • Note that this allows recycling to be set at individual application pool level, you should check which applications this affects by reviewing the applications set to use this pool. To do this when the pool is selected, click the View Applications button the right pane (or by right clicking)
  • An alternative to individual app pool recycles is to do a full IISRESET which will restart all IIS related services and applications. To do this it’s best to setup a Windows Scheduled Tasks to run the command IISRESET will full administrator privileges.

Epicor Users Group EMEA 2017 Conference

Epicor as a company would be nothing without its customers, and customers wouldn’t get very far without Epicor.
Throw into that mix an array of partners, after all I joined the Epicor world through a partner, and you have a fantastically balanced world of skills, expertise, knowledge, and ideas. More importantly it’s the people, and in the last week I finally got to really understand that community of people, and become a part of it.

On Wednesday, 15th November, 2017 at 08:30 I arrived at the Priest House Hotel, Castle Donnington, UK with an unusual, previously unknown kind of nervous excitement. I had arrived, suited and booted, laptop in tow and ready to showcase myself, represent my company and embrace this wonderful community.
Only 2 weeks prior had I received the invitation to present on Server and SQL Optimisation, a topic I know a fair amount about but the concept of presenting at this level was new to me. That said I think I may have mentioned previously that it was something that interested me, so it was potentially my own doing.
2 weeks to prepare a presentation isn’t a huge amount of time when you have a day job, and a home life to work around, but I relished the challenge and got stuck in, only a few days after the initial request and approval did I discover that I in fact had 2x 1 hour presentation slots…ah… a slightly bigger challenge, but again one to relish.
With 4 days to spare I had 2 presentations written, and a full mirror test complete, with only a slight worry on timings.
Fast forward back to 09:30 on the day and the first presentation begins, 30+ people in the room staring at me wondering how this will go down. 1 hour goes by, maybe a bit more, and it seems to be going ok. The questions are flooding in, I’m somehow managing to respond to all of them, answering everything thrown at me. The feedback continues into the break, a number of people saying “great presentation”, “thanks for the information”, “I’m going to look at X when I get back”. Wow, I actually resonated with some of these people. Bearing in mind that many have been in the Epicor and technology worlds far longer than I have, they seemed to all pick something up from the first one. Great, confidence restored, let’s nail the second presentation.
Before I knew it lunch was served, I was still conversing with various people; customers, partners, ex-colleagues and current ones. It wasn’t until I realised only a sausage roll was left in the room that I had gone through 2 hours of presenting and almost an full hour extra of chatting on only 1 coffee, a mini cinnamon swirl and this sausage roll!
Never before had I talked so much tech on so little caffeine, it was at that point I realised that knowledge, preparation and adrenaline we key to this day.

The EUG EMEA 2017 conference seemed to be a huge success across the 3 days from everything I have seen, the middle day on which I presented was focussed on non-product specific IT related topics. I think the fact I came up against the hot topic of GDPR in my session slots and still had a fairly full room was testament to the fact the nobody knows everything, and everyone wants to know a little more on the subjects of Server and SQL optimisation. The feedback at the time certainly reflects that.

I want to once again thank everyone in the EUG EMEA team for having me, the customers who attended the sessions for their perseverance, great questions and feedback and Epicor for letting me attend and present at fairly short notice. Hopefully this will be the start of a new chapter for me as I look to push on into 2018.

For more info on the Epicor Users Group (EUG) please check out the following:
Web: http://www.epicorusers.org
Twitter: https://twitter.com/eug_emea
Conference Twitter: #EUGEMEA2017

2016 Update

If you have seen my other (more personal) blog you will have come across the post I did recently regarding how 2016 has flown by and so many things have changed career wise. If you’ve not read that feel free to jump on over here: http://johnnyward.me.uk/newblog/a-year-of-two-halves/

As this is my technology blog I though I’d share a quick update on skills and technologies that have advanced through this year, the most noticeable are:

  • SQL Skills – yes I know more than just installing now, I can troubleshoot performance issues and tweak setups to ensure a nice smooth running system.. Maintenance of SQL is also one of my most common tasks across many customers.
  • ERP – a broad subject, but I will break down a little. Firstly I am more than capable of a “vanilla” install of Epicor ERP 10/10.1, I’m also capable of updating/upgrading those platforms. On top of that I can also talk tech with IT/ERP managers across all industries to help spec, and install/deploy the Epicor ERP platforms. This also includes a number of additional installs (such as web, Enterprise Search, education tools etc.) and enhancements, such as those for document management and CRM.
  • Hyper-V – not something I’d had the opportunity to play with much before, however I am now capable of installation, deployment, management and maintenance of Hyper-V 2012+ platforms, and I have to say, what a great platform it is.
  • VMware ESX – my knowledge in VMware has also jumped this year, having had the opportunity to manage 2x ESX 6 environments in recent months and upgrade a couple of 5s to 5.5 I am once again familiar with the VMWare suite and as always find it an exciting challenge.
  • Remote Desktop Services – sure we all know a little Terminal Services from back in the day, but having now deployed around 5 of these 2012R2 beauties this year, i am exceptionally impressed. Easy to install and configure, and just as easy to troubleshoot and fix, provided you have the time and mental space in order to do so!

Coming up in 2017…

So it seems there may be a few changes ahead, ones that will potentially make my career, and about time too!

The biggest 2017 challenges seem to be:

  • Cloud – funnily enough the UK hasn’t quite taken to it fully yet…
  • Solutions – how can a product be further enhanced to meet a customer’s longer term goals…
  • Tools – might need a course in C# and a few late nights

Watch this space…