Real Life Stories from the OpenEdge Managed Database Administration Team

Progress services experts from the Database team can help customers solve real performance issues, navigate PAS for OpenEdge transitions, and execute complex platform migrations with minimal downtime.

That was the central takeaway from our recent webinar, “Real-Life Stories from the Managed Database Administration Team,” where Roy Ellis, and Rob Farver shared how customers use the managed database service and how the team helps diagnose, resolve and prevent issues that can impact business‑critical OpenEdge applications.

There were three key discussions during the session

• How the team has helped improve performance
• Progress Application Server (PAS) for OpenEdge migrations when preparing to upgrade
• Database migrations

When Performance Issues Hide in Plain Sight

Long‑standing configuration decisions—often made years earlier—can silently impact performance as environments evolve.

A customer running OpenEdge 11.7 on Linux experienced months of poor performance despite repeatedly increasing the database buffer pool. After installing ProMonitor, a tool exclusive for customers of the managed database service, and analyzing system metrics, the MDBA team identified the root cause: an outdated hash table configuration that no longer matched the size of the environment. Removing the setting and allowing OpenEdge to manage the hash table automatically resulted in an immediate performance improvement.

Other real‑world examples showed how proactive monitoring helped uncover:

• Query slowdowns caused by newly deployed code missing appropriate indexes
• Intermittent user slowness traced back to a misconfigured AppServer IP address

In each case, visibility into system behavior when combined with deep OpenEdge expertise allowed the MDBA team to resolve issues that could have taken weeks or months to diagnose.

PAS for OpenEdge Is Not the Classic AppServer—and That Matters

A significant portion of the session focused on customer experiences moving from the Classic AppServer to PAS for OpenEdge, especially as part of upgrades to OpenEdge 12.8.

While PAS for OpenEdge delivers clear performance and scalability benefits, several stories reinforced an important lesson: PAS for OpenEdge behaves differently than the Classic AppServer, and assumptions that worked before may no longer apply.

In one case, application code made frequent calls to the operating system using OS‑COMMAND and INPUT THROUGH. While this approach worked well in a process‑based Classic AppServer environment, PAS for OpenEdge multi‑threaded architecture introduced contention and degraded performance. Refactoring the code—and rebalancing agents and ABL sessions during the transition—resolved the issue.

Another PAS for OpenEdge example highlighted how unclosed client connections could accumulate over time, eventually creating tens of thousands of concurrent clients and exhausting Tomcat memory. The discovery led the MDBA team to enhance ProMonitor with new alerts for unusually high client and ABL session counts, making it easier to detect and address similar issues early for other customers.

Together, these stories emphasized that successful PAS for OpenEdge adoption requires both architectural awareness and the right diagnostics in place.

Migrating Large Databases Without Extended Downtime

The webinar wrapped up with migration stories focused on customers with multi‑terabyte databases moving from legacy UNIX platforms—such as AIX or HP‑UX—to Linux, often alongside upgrades to OpenEdge 12.8.

Rather than relying on long dump‑and‑load windows, the MDBA team uses Pro2 to continuously stream data and keep source and target systems in sync. This approach minimizes downtime to a short cutover window while allowing customers to continue operating throughout the migration.

For organizations that also rely on SQL Server for analytics and reporting, the team demonstrated how Pro2SQL can run in parallel—seeding SQL Server while OpenEdge remains live. The result is modernization without forcing customers to take critical reporting systems offline for extended periods.

These examples showed how the MDBA team supports not just day‑to‑day stability, but long‑term modernization and platform transitions at scale.

More Than Monitoring: A Proactive Partnership

Throughout the webinar, the MDBA team emphasized that their role goes far beyond reactive support. Customers gain 24×7 monitoring, proactive recommendations, monthly health reporting, and direct access to experienced OpenEdge DBAs who understand both the database and the application layer.

The session also stressed that the team is more than just a monitoring team, but can help customers with a host of other projects like dump and loads, platform migrations and setup of other OpenEdge Database addons such as OpenEdge Replication, OpenEdge Auditing and OpenEdge Transparent Data Encryption.

Final Takeaway

From uncovering hidden configuration issues to guiding PAS for OpenEdge transitions and enabling low‑downtime migrations, these real‑life stories reinforced a simple message: deep OpenEdge expertise combined with proactive monitoring can make a measurable difference.

If you’re planning an upgrade to OpenEdge 12.8, moving to PAS for OpenEdge, or modernizing your infrastructure, the MDBA team’s experiences offer a practical roadmap—and a reminder that you don’t have to tackle these challenges alone.

Watch the full on‑demand webinar to hear all the stories and insights directly from the MDBA team.