For all Windchill users, maintaining your Windchill system isn’t just about avoiding headaches—it’s about ensuring your workdays flow as smoothly as your designs. Here’s a roadmap to a healthy Windchill environment, based on vital actions you can take today.
1. A Quick Health Check-Up of Your System
Imagine your Windchill system as a hardworking heart in your organization. To keep it beating strong, regularly peek into:
- Downtime: We all hate waiting, don’t we? Minimize this as much as possible.
- Memory Usage: Red numbers are red flags.
- Servlet Response Time: More red? Time to act.
- Garbage Collection Mode: If it’s happening over 80% of the time, it’s too much.
As a site admin, keeping an eye on these metrics is key to preemptive maintenance.
2. Dive into Server Logs
If you’re up for a bit of investigative work, scan through your server logs. This may include:
- Apache & Method Server Logs: Look out for unusual patterns or errors.
- Background Server Manager: Unexpected behavior here could be a sign of trouble.
Understanding these logs is like reading the tea leaves for your system’s health.
3. Disk Space & Back-Up
Aim to keep at least 15% of your server drive-free. Think of it as keeping your workspace tidy for efficiency. And, don’t forget to monitor the storage available for backups – your safety net needs to be ready at all times.
4. Matching Users with Licenses
Are you aware of how many people access Windchill and if you have the licenses to cover them? Regularly review the following to avoid legal trouble with software manufacturers:
- Light Licenses: Perfect for those who just need to view and print.
- Heavy Licenses: For the CAD superheroes and others who dive deeper.
Aligning your user count with your license agreement is a fundamental compliance matter.
5. Clean Up Log Files
Low disk space can lead to performance issues. If your log files are growing:
- Check the date created.
- Decide whether they’re still useful.
Old log files can often be archived or deleted to free up space.
6. Clean Up Unreferenced Files
Lastly, clean up the unreferenced files in your file vaults. This process removes orphan files that consume valuable space. Refer to Windchill Help for detailed instructions, but remember:
BEWARE! Once these files are deleted, they’re gone forever.
Adopting these six steps in your regular Windchill system check-up can drastically improve your system’s health and performance. Stay proactive to keep the cogs of your Windchill system— and therefore your production—running without a glitch.
If you are looking to check in on your Windchill system, but are unsure where to get started, you can contact one of our experts to learn more.
1. Why do I need to do regular maintenance on my PTC Windchill system?
Critical systems, like Windchill PLM, must be available to users. This is why it is so important to do regular maintenance on your PTC Windchill system. Windchill system outages can be costly and impact system adoption and usage. Therefore, it is recommended that you complete regular, preventative maintenance to identify and resolve issues before they cause performance problems or service interruptions.
2. What is included in the Alliance program?
We start by assessing your department and company’s needs. We combine the assessment results with our understanding of successful Windchill implementations and deliver recommendations and a plan for a stable, high-performance Windchill instance. The flexibility of the Alliance program allows us to configure an engagement as needed. This gives us the ability to tailor the program specifically to your company.
3. Can my staff complete the Windchill maintenance activities?
Certainly! Keep in mind that preventative Windchill maintenance tasks are commonly an afterthought, and other projects are likely to take precedence. As the staff becomes busier, their dependence on a functioning Windchill system increases. These would be times when a system outage during a critical project could prove to be disastrous.
4. Can you train my staff to complete Windchill maintenance tasks?
Yes, in fact we would love to help train your staff how to complete Windchill maintenance tasks. EAC has PTC certified instructors that are available to deliver all of the Windchill Business and System Admin training courses offered by PTC. After attending these classes your staff will be ready to take on their new Windchill responsibilities. Additionally, we can provide mentoring with our Windchill experts to answer all of your Windchill maintenance questions.
5. What are some benefits of using the EAC Alliance program?
One of the core benefits of the EAC Alliance Program is the ability to take a proactive approach to maintaining your Windchill system – ensuring high availability and performance. By completing regular system maintenance and software updates you are able to better leverage your PTC investment. You can also eliminate the need to maintain a staff of Windchill Administration experts by assigning these system and business admin tasks to our EAC’s expert consultants. Our Windchill consultants have years of experience and complete these same activities on a daily, weekly and monthly basis for many Alliance Program customers.
6. Are Windchill system updates and upgrades included in the Alliance Program?
Yes, the EAC Alliance Program can be structured to include Windchill system updates and upgrades. When you include this in your Alliance Program you can easily budget a fixed cost over the upcoming months and years.
7. Can you support my Global company?
Yes. While EAC is based in the United States, we are part of the PTC Strategic Partner network giving us access to many additional resources overseas. We call on these partners to help with implementation, training, and support services local to international facilities.
8. Are you able to provide 24/7 Windchill support?
Yes. We can provide your company access to our support case submission system, which will allow your Windchill users to log cases at any time of day. If emergency Windchill support is required (noted by the priority level assigned to your case), our team will be notified immediately and begin support. If you require overseas support, and international support is included in your Alliance Program agreement, we will coordinate with a local PTC partner to address the issue.
9. Doesn’t my PTC Maintenance agreement include similar Windchill services?
No. Your PTC maintenance agreement covers all Windchill updates to software that you have purchased as well as technical support should you have a problem that requires resolution. It does not include the services necessary to update, upgrade and maintain your Windchill system.
10. How much does the EAC Alliance Program cost?
This varies based on the complexity of your Windchill environment and the level of support you would like to include in your service level agreement (SLA). This can be determined by having a quick conversation with your team and proposing a solution that correctly addresses your needs. Contact us today for further information!
Let’s talk about Windchill System administration services and why they could be crucial to your business’s success.
When it comes to engineering centric products, technology can become a very complicated matter.
Due to the complexity of product data management systems, many things can go wrong if they’re not properly managed.
Here is a list of the common problems you could face if you choose to manage your engineering data management and PLM systems in-house.
1. System downtime
One of the worst problems you may face is extended sessions of Windchill downtime due to technology failures.
For example, it is common to be unaware when your Windchill system is running out of disk space. When this happens, a Windchill system can and will go down.
In many cases, these system instances are easily overlooked without the help of a dedicated Windchill support team.
The reality is, if at anytime your product data management system is not functioning, your company will end up losing money.
Aside from preventing your business from making profits, a Windchill system downtime could lead you to lose access to core systems.
This includes servers and back-end processors, ultimately, preventing you from doing your job. According to a study done by USA Today, 80 percent of managers reported product data management system downtime costs exceeding $50,000 per hour.
2. Windchill System Performance Problems
More than 70 percent of our customers do not perform routine Windchill maintenance.
Without utilizing a Windchill managed services team, you could be missing an opportunity to prevent, find and fix system problems prior to a technology failure.
How are you supposed to know if your PDM system needs more RAM, if you should allocate more resources, or if your Windchill server has been performing slow?
When you have regular performance check-ups, you will be able to improve the overall performance of your business.
Regular Windchill system performance check-ups also help avoid system downtime as you are provided with early warnings of any possible malfunctions that may occur. If a disaster strikes, you can rest easier knowing your business won’t lose any valuable data.
3. Productivity loss
Not only can technology failures prevent your business from making a profit, it can also cripple the productivity of your employees.
I mean nobody wants to hand out free money to those who are just sitting around simply because they are unable to do their job, am I right?
Many times, your IT department may have to work overtime to recover lost data. If the customer perception is affected, a costly marketing campaign may be the only thing to win back customers.
Bottomline, the impact of a Windchill system complication may be worse than you realize and your company could lose the ability for anyone to do work.
4. High-Security risks
Your Windchill system could appear to be running properly, but if it is not protected, your business could experience a security breach. If this happens, it will put your sensitive data at risk.
To help with this, it is important to have multiple layers of security measures in place. If your system is being closely monitored by an Windchill administration team, you will be aware of any inconsistencies.
When you have someone you trust monitoring your Windchill system, you’ll have less to worry about. I truly believe it is better to be safe than sorry when it comes to your company’s data.
By using a Windchill system administration service, you can rest easy knowing you are being taken care of. Plus- while your system is being properly maintained, you will be able to free up your IT department and focus on more important business initiatives.
Want to learn the current health of your Windchill System? With no obligations or any cost – sign up for a Windchill system check-up to have our experts look at your system!
Enterprise systems require administration and management that can be time-consuming and foreign territory for many companies. This is why we created The EAC Alliance Program.
The Alliance Program provides PTC Windchill system administration and support services.
Our team of expert technicians improve system performance, optimize server and license configurations, and maintain a stable PLM environment for your organization. The Alliance Program is transforming the way companies service their Windchill and Intralink PLM & PDM systems.
Alliance Program customers save an average of 50% over other options for dedicated administration and support.
Our team of certified and experienced technicians proactively monitors system events and diagnostics that typically go unnoticed.
Their attention to detail and deep understanding of the technology allows them to increase system stability and reduce downtime by up to 95%.
At EAC, we want to partner with you to you create a better, more productive workspace. The Alliance Program is helping customers increase user satisfaction and ensure a return on their Windchill investment. We accomplish this by providing:
- On-going technical support
- Business process consulting
- System Monitoring
- System Maintenance
- Upgrade Planning
- Implementation
- Performance Tuning
- Windchill Server Optimization
- Monthly Mentoring for Admins & Users
- Discounts on all EAC Training Services
If you’re looking for a way to improve sluggish or slow Windchill system performance, increase system uptime up to 99%, and even reduce operational risk, the Alliance Program can help. To learn more about the Alliance Program, download our brochure here.
Curious about the current state of your system? For a limited time the EAC Alliance Program team will perform a FREE Windchill System Analysis. You can claim your free Windchill System Analysis here.
