Microsoft Dynamics undergoes testing

Avanade Inc., a global technology integrator for Microsoft enterprise solutions, released some results of a benchmark study detailing enterprise-scale use of Microsoft CRM. The Avanade test results demonstrated the relative capability of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 to scale under a variously sized sales force loads with response times averaging under 0.5 seconds.

The Avanade tests were conducted in the Seattle, Wash., development center. At peak, a simulated data load of one year’s worth of heavy sales activity was used. Peak-hour benchmark performance highlights with a 3,000 concurrent user test parameter included 22,260 CRM business transactions per hour; an average response time of .355 seconds; and 66.77 percent database server utilization. Avanade completed the study using methodology identical to Microsoft-based performance tests conducted earlier this year.

The benchmarking study was set up in order to measure the software’s performance with minimal customization using a default installation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 configured for web clients only and deployed on three dedicated web servers. Avanade Connected Architecture infrastructure for .NET was used in configuring the application infrastructure, including network design, identity and access management, and platform design and deployment.

Hardware components included a Sun Microsystems V40z Windows database server with four dual-core 64-bit AMD Opteron processors; 16 GB of RAM and Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition for 64-bit computing; and two 2-GB Fibre Channel storage area network adapters connected to a fully meshed SAN fabric with eight paths to an EMC Symmetrix 8430 storage array. Heavy. Full findings from the Avanade benchmark test are available at www.AvanadeAdvisor.com.