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Posted: 11/6/2009
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Texas Instruments Gains Technical Acumen and Boosts Scalability of Customer Solution
Texas Instruments needed to improve the performance of a key order-taking solution used by engineering customers. The company attended a Proof-of-Concept workshop at a Microsoft® Technology Center (MTC) to explore and resolve coding bottlenecks, helping the solution go from supporting 20 concurrent users to supporting 450. The company also gained technical insight and avoided spending U.S.$75,000 on extra hardware because of its MTC experience.
Business Needs
Founded in 1930 as a geophysical exploration company, Texas Instruments today provides innovative semiconductor technologies and related solutions to help its customers create advanced electronics. One of its solutions is used by customers to submit orders for specific Texas Instruments parts. But this is more than just a simple order-taking solution; rather, customers can upload the design of a power supply, for instance, and receive a list of all the parts necessary to make that power supply work. Engineering customers can use the solution to draw schematics, conduct design simulations, and get information about how various Texas Instruments circuits work.
As of July 2008, the solution, which was written using the Microsoft® .NET Framework 3.0, had been used in a pilot but not in production. Texas Instruments had received complaints from certain customers, especially those outside the United States, that they often experienced long wait times while working in the Web application. “We weren’t seeing the grassroots adoption that we expected to see, even from our pilot users,” admits Greg Speer, Solution Architect for Texas Instruments.
The business group responsible for the creation of the solution wanted to add at least two regional server computers to help boost the solution’s power. However, the IT group, which would be responsible for managing those added computers, wanted to ensure that there were no bottlenecks in the solution’s code before expanding the infrastructure.
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Prior to our week at the MTC, the application could handle fewer than 20 concurrent users. When we left, we could support 450 concurrent users, which is a huge improvement! |
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Greg Speer Solution Architect, Texas Instruments |
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Solution
Texas Instruments discussed its predicament with its account team at Microsoft and accepted an offer to attend a Proof-of-Concept workshop at the Microsoft Technology Center (MTC) in Dallas, Texas. “I knew that going to the MTC would give us an unbiased opinion so that we could get to the heart of any issues with our code,” says Speer.
In October 2008, a group of Texas Instruments stakeholders spent a week at the MTC. The group spent the first day of the engagement working with an MTC architect to validate the environment, install the application, and automatically generate accounts. In the course of that setup work, the joint team discovered that the existing method for account creation in the solution’s database structure created a bottleneck that led to performance limitations. “The MTC architect identified a code leak that was causing extra traffic that bogged down the application,” says Speer. “He helped us resolve the issue pretty quickly, and we spent the rest of the week making incremental improvements to the code.”
Texas Instruments found its MTC architect to be excellent, in terms of both his knowledge of the environment and coding techniques and his sensitivity. “He delivered advice in such a non-threatening way—it really put people at ease,” recalls Speer. “Because of his delivery, we were quickly working together to solve our problems, rather than being defensive.”
The company also appreciated the resources available in the MTC facility. “It was a top-notch environment,” says Speer. “If we needed more server computers, they were immediately brought online for us. The MTC staff responded so quickly that all our time was quality time.”
Following the MTC engagement, Texas Instruments immediately released new code and put the solution into production. Since that time, there has been a considerable increase in the solution’s adoption. “We’ve seen growth by a factor of three in our user base, and we attribute much of that to our work at the MTC,” notes Speer.
Benefits
Throughout the MTC engagement, Texas Instruments made small changes that added up to a big impact on scalability. “The MTC exceeded our performance goals and all our expectations,” says Speer. “The net result was that we were able to get our customer-facing application producing orders at a much more rapid pace than we could in the past. We came away more confident in our ability to be achieve good things with Microsoft .NET technology, and we now know that we have a world-class vendor that we can trust to help us be successful.”
Dramatically Improved Scalability
The company used its time at the MTC to significantly increase its solution’s scalability. “Prior to our week at the MTC, the application could handle fewer than 20 concurrent users,” says Speer. “When we left, we could support 450 concurrent users, which is a huge improvement!”
Cost Avoidance
At the MTC, Texas Instruments found better ways to improve the performance of its solution and saved the company from having to purchase additional hardware. “We had been ready to invest an initial $75,000 in new hardware and extra physical space, and we would have needed to add server computers as the user base grew,” says Speer. “Not only did we avoid that cost, we also kept our environment from taking on additional complexity that would have slowed down our release cycle.”
Enhanced Technical Skills
Texas Instruments believes that the MTC provided equipment and expertise that the company didn’t previously have. “The MTC gave us the opportunity to work with Microsoft to evaluate the performance of our code and develop more advanced testing methods,” says Larry Gewax, Software Engineering Manager for Texas Instruments. Texas Instruments is applying that knowledge—such as best practices for detailed load testing—to other solutions.
Access to Resources
Texas Instruments developers found that having an offsite location with access to expert resources helped them focus on the tasks at hand. “The week at the MTC was like a resort for developers,” says Kyle Patterson, Senior Software Engineer for Texas Instruments. “We had access to state-of-the-art testing environment that was set up and ready to use, MTC architects with a diverse set of talents to provide necessary analysis and advice, and a comfortable and relaxed atmosphere.”
