Overview
Founded in 1905, PADNOS is an industry leader in customized recycling solutions that buys, processes and sells paper, plastics and metals for industrial and commercial customers. Headquartered in Holland, Michigan, the family-owned and operated business employs more than 700 people at its 25 recycling locations in Michigan and throughout the United States.
The company’s nine-person Information Technology group manages three SQL Servers that run a number of critical software applications, including systems for: electronic document imaging, delivery and pickup tracking, fleet tracking for the company’s 80 trucks, maintenance management for the fleet and plant equipment, human resource management, and accounting. Nearly 500 PADNOS employees actively use these systems every day.
Challenge
The PADNOS IT team faced ongoing problems with the company’s mission-critical accounting application, which serves as a retail point-of-sale system for buying and selling scrap products. Too often, high demand for the application caused one set of users to get blocked out by another, resulting in delays of up to 30 seconds and ongoing frustration for customers.
The team tried to address this issue by running queries with SQL Server management tools, but they lacked the visibility required to pinpoint issues quickly. The PADNOS IT team needed another management tool to provide real-time analysis of SQL Server health and performance metrics so they could understand what was going on in the application, and how to fix it.