Case Study: Valassis achieves 3x transaction performance (up to 350 TPS) with SmartBear AQtime

VRMS Turns to AQtime to Improve Product Speed

Valassis Relationship Marketing Systems (VRMS) is a leading developer of high-volume customer database and CRM solutions (MarketEXPERT XR, TargetEXPERT XR) for major retailers worldwide. While rebuilding TargetEXPERT as a multi-threaded system to handle growing loyalty-transaction volumes, VRMS found the new version was unexpectedly slower than the legacy single-threaded release and initially sustained only 6 transactions per second (TPS), so they turned to AQtime Pro to quickly diagnose performance bottlenecks.

Using AQtime Pro to profile key methods, VRMS identified an inefficient socket library and replaced it to raise performance from 6 to 48 TPS, then tuned other hotspots to 125 TPS within a month; rewriting the database layer and switching compilers ultimately pushed throughput to about 350 TPS—well above the original 50–100 TPS goal. The improvements delivered three times the target performance and earned praise from a top-five global retailer for TargetEXPERT’s reliability during peak periods.

Valassis

Andy Klapper

Valassis