The Future is Bright…

When news breaks of a large tech company sale, in the midst of a global pandemic, people will sit up and take note. It’s fair to say this one is huge news, and the future is indeed very bright.

https://www.epicor.com/en-uk/press-room/news-releases/clayton-dubilier-rice-to-acquire-epicor-software-corporation-from-kkr/

On a personal note this will be the 4th acquisition/takeover/purchase of a company I work for in 5 years, see previous posts for notes on those!

This and That

Over the last few month I’ve tried to expand my horizons a little bit. Since 2009 I have worked in a few different technical roles, from helping to run data centres, and setup environments for ISV engagements at IBM, to running all systems for a rapidly growing Oracle partner, whilst on the side managing 100 websites including e-commerce sites. That led into my quick stint doing tech support in the Automotive sector before moving into customer facing roles in Jan 2016. Since then I’ve always been running on a few different threads, these have been, loosely:

  • Installs/Config for ERP systems including initial system design
  • Technical training of customers in those ERP systems
  • Technical management of escalated issues (across the world)
  • Cross-team liason for high profile or highly escalated customers
  • Coordination of international team of installations consultants
  • Development of internal tooling for installs/ technical consulting
  • Management of environments for wider team

From my recent posts it’s obvious which areas on that list have received the most focus over the last few months, notably the last two, which is where all the DevOps/Code posts are centred around. The reason so much focus has been on this, and I’ll add at this point a lot of it out of work hours, is because it’s something I enjoy, something I’ve been on the edge of before, and an area of technology that I personally believe we should all be at least aware of, and able to understand the basic principles of.

DevOps was a term coined many years before it became mainstream. Mike Loukides wrote a 20 page book called “What is DevOps” back in June 2012, which is published by the world renowned O’Reilly Media. (http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920026822.do) That’s some time before I came across the term, although it seems I was already aware of some of the practices that now come under that umbrella. Back then I was managing E-Commerce sites, writing PHP websites against MySQL databases and moving a very static, cumbersome “tin-factory” infrastructure over to more dynamic, sustainable growth-capable platform. With a little more time and knowledge at that time I would’ve potentially moved in different directions. I am now starting to close that circle a little from the other side.

For me, career development is crucial, I am more than happy to stay with one company, or in one role, but I will always push to make more of myself, learn new things, get involved with everything possible and break down any and all barriers. I don’t do this to benefit myself, I see it as an opprtunity for me to be a benefit to those around me, both customers and colleagues.

Outside of DevOps activities over the recent months I’ve also been working on my presentation skills, with opportunities to present to colleagues and customers about various technical topics, including System Adminstration, upcoming product changes, best practices etc. This is in part due to being given more free reign with my current role, while we work out what my future roles may or may not include, and that’s if any change at all! In the background, the day to role keeps me busy, planning installs, speaking to new customers about how to deploy, speaking to existing customers about upgrades or enhancements to their systems, all the fun stuff that keeps money in the bank and roofs over heads!

The next few months may get a little busy, well hopefully they will, and all the good stuff will be posted when the chances arise.

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.