HP Superdome Server Simulates Processing of One of World's Largest Payrolls in Less Than a Single Shift; Unprecedented Results Achieved Using Superdome, Oracle9i Real Application Clusters
PALO ALTO, Calif., May 5, 2003 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- The HP Superdome server
simulated the processing of one of the world's largest payroll systems --
consisting of monthly, weekly and biweekly payroll checks for more than 2.6
million employees -- in less than four hours, according to benchmark testing
conducted at HP's (NYSE:HPQ) Americas Solution Center in Cupertino, Calif.(1)
The benchmark results demonstrated that HP Superdome servers and HP StorageWorks
Disk Arrays xp1024, in combination with Oracle9i Real Application Clusters, can
scale to some of the largest and most complex computing scenarios for enterprise
customers.
"As a leading technology company, HP realizes its customers and the industry
benefit from comparing performance benchmarks," said Bruce Klein, vice
president, federal sales and marketing, HP Public Sector Organization. "The
results announced today prove that even with commercial off-the-shelf software,
the HP Superdome server can process one of the world's largest payroll systems
in less than a single shift."
"This benchmark demonstrates the performance and scalability benefits of
Oracle9i Real Application Clusters for enterprise applications," said Richard
Sarwal, vice president, data server applied technologies, Oracle Corporation.
"And because the scalability and fault-tolerance of Real Application Clusters
are achieved without requiring application changes, we see rapid adoption of
this technology by enterprise ISVs."
Benchmark Specifications and Results
The benchmark was the first fully integrated test of a large government agency's
personnel and pay capabilities. It simulated the final pay period of the year
for an organization with more than 2.6 million members being paid at one time.
Each person had a full 12 months of payroll history.
Striving to emulate peak loads for a 24x7 operation, the benchmark simulated
simultaneous batch and OLTP loads. The benchmark also included a simultaneous
simulation of 76,000 end users accessing off-the-shelf human resource management
systems. The self-service processes included: accessing the system via single
sign-on; viewing personalized role-based home page; and completing human
resource self-service transactions, performing performance evaluations,
promotions and new-hire transactions.
In addition, the base population of active employees in this organization was
4.5 million. The payroll system was broken down into 128 randomly sized pay
groups, ranging from 15,000 to 50,000 employees, to represent a normal
enterprise distribution. Each employee had multiple benefits and deductions,
including state and local tax requirements, which required the use of U.S. tax
laws.
The benchmark architecture included two HP Superdome servers running HP-UX 11i,
with the payroll system having 64 PA-RISC processors (750 MHz) and 128 MB of
memory, while the interactive system had 32 PA-RISC processors (750 MHz) and 128
MB of memory.
The servers were clustered via Hyperfabric connectivity and HP MC/Serviceguard,
using Oracle9i Real Application Clusters, so that both the interactive and the
payroll users were accessing the same data simultaneously. The interactive users
were emulated using Mercury LoadRunner and accessed the system via 12 HP rp2450
Web servers with two processors running WebLogic 5.1 on HP-UX 11i.
The application servers consisted of four eight-processor HP Servers rp7410 and
four 16-processor HP Servers rp8400 running commercially available human
resource management systems and North American Payroll 8.3 with Tuxedo version
6.5 with Jolt 1.2 on HP-UX 11i. The HP StorageWorks Disk Array xp1024 provided
the enterprise-class storage capacity and performance for the benchmark.
Benchmark test results were validated by TESCOM, an industry leader in
certifying benchmark results for software products. TESCOM independently
re-executed the benchmark and achieved the same results as the HP Americas
Solution Center, which is also used by HP customers for proof-of-concept testing
(prototyping), application characterization, porting and migration, and solution
demonstration capabilities.
The high-end UNIX(R) HP Superdome server offers customers industry-leading
performance, partitioning, connectivity, availability and utility computing.
Customers benefit from fast on-line transaction processing, short
batch-processing windows, rich data warehousing, high-volume e-commerce/Web
transactions and a solution that's easy on the IT budget.
More information on HP Superdome is available at
hp. |
