GE Aviation has sustained a Windchill implementation for many years, from the days of the “6.2.6 lighthouse” ProjectLink migrations to the latest/greatest release of 10.2. Throughout its lifecycle, it has always been problematic to proactively monitor and measure Windchill performance and availability. Monitoring the application health is imperative in any production environment. No one ever wants to hear “Windchill is Down!” Quickly identifying the issue and resolving it is critical. Sometimes this becomes a “scratch of the head” and bounce…”oh, that fixed it.” Then you are left with a problem report to identify a root cause that is sometimes impossible to resolve. GE have used a plethora of tools to check the application process existence and heartbeat types of monitors, but by the time they alert you, the problem is typically already affecting the end-user – engineers, change management, manufacturing floor, etc. – all ultimately suffering from productivity losses and ultimately, financial losses for GE Aviation. Then enters PTC System Monitor (PSM)! It is available for use with PDMLink/ProjectLink implementation, but was always “back-burnered” for more pressing business concerns. Application availability and performance is a *HUGE* business concern! GE Aviation went live with PSM earlier (including User Experience Module from DynaTrace) this year and immediately started benefitting. The presenters shared their experience!
