The move of all Fuzion servers from ServePath to Amazon is complete.  We accomplished a monumental move in less than 12 hours.  We conducted beta testing on the new servers prior to moving customers over which in hindsight was a good move.  We were able to make some additional performance enhancements without having to worry about taking customers down during business hours.  With all users on the new servers, the performance in the Smart Client is AMAZING.  The servers and network are performing multiple times faster than our previous hosting solution.  We also have increased our redundancy with the ability to quickly clone servers and add multiple web servers to the load balancer on a moments notice.  During peak usage, we can now add additional web servers to handle the increased load with no negative effect on users.  In addition, our data is now backed up on multiple devices across several data centers.  This gives us excellent disaster recovery capabilities. 

Now that the server move is complete, we will be focusing on more customer requested features so look for them in the near future!

We are working hard around the office today putting the final touches on the 10.1.4 release.  In addition to new features, we are doing a major upgrade to our server infrastructure to support the additional users who have started using Fuzion in the last few months.  We’ve been using the new servers internally and with one customer and the performance is excellent.  All Fuzion users should see faster screens on Monday!  We will update the What’s New page once the release is finished so users can check out the new features.  Here is a link to the What’s New page.  http://www.capricciofuzion.com/whatsnew/

The development team for Capriccio Fuzion has just released the Fuzion/Quickbooks Integration module.  The module is available at no additional charge to all existing Fuzion customers.  Quickbooks Integration has been the most highly requested new feature from both existing and potential customers.  This module keeps data in Capriccio Fuzion and Quickbooks in sync highly reducing the administrative burden of Fuzion users.

The following objects are synchronized between the two platforms.

• Customers
• Projects (Fuzion) & Jobs (Quickbooks)
• Employees
• Payroll Items
• Service Items
• Chart of Accounts
• Time Entries

The Fuzion EAP program is officially ending today.  I’d like to thank the customers who participated and provided valuable insight into the product.  There is no substitute for having actual customers beating on a system and asking if it can do more.  Fuzion is a better for having had the early adopters and I am grateful for your help.

Fuzion is now in full release and we will be stepping up our Sales & Marketing efforts.  Stay tuned…

Business continues to look exciting for 2009!  We are very fortunate to be experiencing growth in such hard economic times.  We continue to forge strong relationships with our partners and our launch of Capriccio Fuzion has catapulted us toward the achievement of our primary goals.

We are looking to fill an urgent Software Engineer position so send me an e-mail if you or someone you know is interested.  The position is in our Stafford, Virginia office, so the commute for a Stafford resident would be excellent!

Here is a link to the Position Description.

Bob

I'm proud to announce the launch of our Early Adopter's Program (EAP) for Capriccio Fuzion.

Capriccio Fuzion is an innovative and cost-effective solution which tackles common business problems faced on a daily basis by companies of all sizes.  Fuzion brings together functional areas such as Human Resources, Timekeeping, Customer Relationship Management, Project Management and Strategic Planning into one integrated system.  Fuzion's ease-of-use and highly customizable interface allows you to increase communication, productivity and focus to bring your organization to new heights.

We'll be running the EAP, which offers a 40% discount, for a limited time beginning today.  If you would like a personalized tour of the software or information about the EAP, please Click Here to fill out our Web Contact form.

Construction on our new offices is finally nearing an end.  We will be hosting the Open House on Thursday, September 25th from 1200-1900.  We are hoping this time-frame will provide scheduling flexibility to as many guests as possible.  If guests wish to attend during the 1200-1400 time-frame, lunch will be provided.

Invitations will be going out soon.  Save the date!

We are preparing to launch our largest software undertaking to date (still top secret) and I have been focusing on performance tuning for the last week or so in preparation for the public release.  Our new application has a huge list of features and benefits, but if the application is slow we fail.  I downloaded and installed AutomatedQA's QATime demo and have been using it to gather results on our software's performance.

Our new software runs either locally on a corporate LAN or remotely over the Internet using SSL security.  When the application is on the LAN, database calls are very quick and not usually a performance problem.  However, over the Internet these calls become very expensive and take considerably more time to complete.  The goal of my performance profiling was to reduce the number of database calls and optimize the traffic.

When you run our Beta application over the Internet, the slowest screen is the Charge Number screen.  The screen was typically taking about 1 second * the # of charge numbers you had active for your account.  If you had 25 active, it would take 25 seconds to load the screen.  Also, when you had an administrator role and access to all and need to look at everyone's, it then becomes like 110 seconds.  NOT ACCEPTABLE!
So I ran the AutomatedQA Profiler tool on the current production version and gathered my base data.  I made a round of changes, gathered a second set of data and then made a final round of changes and gathered the last set of data.  My clicks were as follows.  Click the ChargeNumber nav button, clear the active filter, and select the All Charge Numbers filter dropdown.  Here are some numbers.

Performance Enhacements

Without QATime, I would only be guessing my code changes were actually having a positive effect on our users.  With QATime, I can back up our claims with solid data!

You can click this link to view the product page for QATime.  www.automatedqa.com/products/aqtime/index.asp

More information on the new software product will be released soon.  Stay tuned!

Recently I worked on a project where there was a requirement to query an Oracle Internet Directory (OID) server with a user's certificate subject to verifiy if the user existed in the OID directory and return the username to be used as the credential.  This seemed at first like it would be a simple task using the System.DirectoryServices namespace.  Knowing that Oracle OID was LDAP v3 compliant, I developed a prototype on my local machine that queried an Active Directory domain controller.  Everything worked out nicely.  I then moved the code to my development server and pointed to the Oracle LDAP server.  I kept getting an invalid username/password error.  This was interesting because the LDAP server allowed anonymous browsing and did not need credentials.  I scoured the Internet for answers and found many forum posts of people asking how to do this scenario, but no answers.  I wanted to blog about this in case someone else finds themselves in my situation.  The answer turned out to be pretty simple.  The System.DirectoryServices.Protocols namespace had all the classes I needed to talk to a non-AD generic LDAP server.  Here is a snippet of my final code.

string server = "SERVER";
string dn = "DN";
string searchAttribute = "SA";
string usernameAttribute = "UA";

LdapConnection lcon = new LdapConnection(server);
lcon.AuthType = AuthType.Anonymous;
string[] att = new string[1];
att[0] = usernameAttribute;
string filter = "(" + searchAttribute +"=" + criteria.Cert + ")";
SearchRequest sr = new SearchRequest(dn, filter, SearchScope.Subtree,att);
SearchResponse res = (SearchResponse)lcon.SendRequest(sr);
if (res.Entries != null  && res.Entries.Count > 0)
{
DirectoryAttribute da = res.Entries[0].Attributes[usernameAttribute];
this._name = da.GetValues(typeof(string)).GetValue(0).ToString();
if (_name != string.Empty && _name != "")
{
  _isAuthenticated = true;
}
else
{
  _isAuthenticated = false;
}
}
else
{
_isAuthenticated = false;
}

We are finally moved into the new office and getting settled in quickly.  There are a few construction items to be completed, but overall we are very happy with the results.  Our phone numbers and mailing address remain unchanged.  Invitations to the open house will be forthcoming.