We would like to apologise for the disruption during the last ILR submission period caused by performance issues in PICSWeb.
Since then, we have introduced a range of improvements at various points in the infrastructure. These measures are intended to increase performance and avoid similar issues occurring in the future.
The following steps have been taken so far:
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Improved firewall configuration to not be overly aggressive reporting system unavailability
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Introduced additional load balanced webservers
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Tuned database server configuration
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Tuned database load spread across database servers
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Prevented file uploads and downloads from blocking web requests whilst waiting on eFilestore.
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Implemented the ability for Pellcomp to abort very long running reports
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Disabled Contact Hours to date from reports until we can make the calculation more efficient
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Introduced detecting changes to search text in lookup lists at the server and cancelling the previous database search
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Made use of server side session storage to cache certain user settings to avoid looking it up in the database for every page load
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Added a record count filter to log views to prevent fetching all logs at once
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Increased the time browsers will cache Profile pictures to 1 week to reduce calls to fetch the files so often
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Optimised the iCal feed and reduced the window of events to 3 months from 12 months
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Implemented limits to certain multiple record imports
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Optimised payment imports
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Optimised database access in ILR Exports
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Optimised database access in Claims calculations
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Optimised database access in Learner Reports
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Optimised database access for Home widgets such as Invalid Learners, Forms Management and Recent Learners
While performance has now improved, we are continuing to monitor the situation closely to spot any further issues. If you have not done so already, we recommend that you subscribe to updates from our Status Page to stay informed. Any incidents that arise in the software or our hosting service are reported here and updated when resolved.
