MicroStrategy Software Breaks 100,000 User Barrier with Only 32 CPU Cores

VIENNA, Va., Jan. 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- MicroStrategy^® Incorporated (Nasdaq: MSTR), a leading worldwide provider of business intelligence (BI) software, today announced that in benchmark tests of its latest software release, MicroStrategy 9.0.2, MicroStrategy can support more than 100,000 active users while delivering average response times under 2 seconds.

In MicroStrategy's High Performance and Scalability tests, a 4-node clustered configuration of MicroStrategy Intelligence Server containing a total of 32 CPU cores delivered a power rating of 560 KiloCycles, which equates to 560,000 round-trip queries per hour. This query volume was sustained while supporting over 100,000 active users, which can be extrapolated to a total user population of 500,000 people. The tests ran using MicroStrategy 9.0.2 installed on commodity Intel-based hardware with the RedHat Linux ES operating system, with a typical retail price of $63,500 for the 4-node clustered configuration.

During the test sequence, the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server demonstrated an almost exactly proportional increase in capacity as additional server nodes were added to the clustered configuration. In single-node operation, the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server with 8 CPU cores delivered a power rating of 147 KiloCycles, supporting the traffic volume of over 26,000 active users. With two nodes, the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server with 16 CPU cores delivered 284 KiloCycles, supporting the traffic volume of approximately 51,000 active users.  A three-node configuration containing 24 CPU cores delivered 423 KiloCycles, supporting the traffic volume of approximately 76,000 active users.

Performance Test Details: The performance tests were conducted using a standard test suite of 66 reports and 5 complex dashboards that were designed to incorporate the full range of report sizes and usage patterns consistent with enterprise BI applications. MicroStrategy created the test suite based on the application profiles of a dozen of its larger customers. The smallest report contained 1 row and 60KB of data, while the largest report contained over 218,000 rows and 23,602KB of data. The report complexity ranged from a single SQL pass to 149 SQL passes to calculate the report results. The average number of SQL passes for all reports in the test suite is 17. The database used contained 1TB of data with a 7 billion row fact table running on Oracle 11g. The tests operated against cached data as well as large-scale in-memory databases, within the 144GB memory space used by the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server in-memory cube technology.  

MicroStrategy's High Performance Initiative: In April 2010, MicroStrategy announced the launch of its High Performance Initiative, which includes a dedicated team of performance engineers and a multi-million dollar state-of-the-art research laboratory equipped with the latest database hardware, software, and performance testing tools. MicroStrategy's engineering team runs hundreds of performance tests each week to benchmark software performance, further improve scale and performance, and uncover configuration options and design techniques to deliver higher performance for customers. 

For nine consecutive years, MicroStrategy customers have analyzed the largest data volumes as compared to customers of all other BI products, according to The BI Survey, the largest independent survey of the BI market. In the latest BI Survey, 37% of MicroStrategy customers analyze over 1 terabyte vs. an average of 9.7% of BI customers in general. MicroStrategy's customers have some of the largest and most sophisticated BI deployments in the industry. Here are several examples:

Lowe's Companies: The second-largest home improvement retailer in the world, Lowe's has more than 38 terabytes of data. Lowe's has multiple MicroStrategy-based BI applications that support over 16,000 employees across a variety of business functions, including applications that allow store managers to access store reports and business metrics. In addition, Lowe's uses BI to help its suppliers and vendors monitor the performance of their products.

METRO GROUP: One of the largest and most international retailing companies, METRO GROUP uses MicroStrategy to analyze 80 terabytes of transactional, product, market, and customer data. MicroStrategy provides METRO GROUP with detailed insights to track business performance, optimize product assortment, and make timely decisions to enhance customer responsiveness. More than 15,000 employees across 30 countries use METRO GROUP's BI applications.

"Our research consistently shows performance is a key concern impacting BI implementations and organizations' abilities to provide faster and better decision making capabilities," said David Menninger, Ventana Research VP and Research Director.  "A disciplined approach in measuring and improving performance such as MicroStrategy's High Performance Initiative provides real value to customers by addressing one of the key obstacles to a successful BI implementation."

"Companies today are faced with supporting escalating data volumes and providing fast and easy data access for business decision makers," said Sanju Bansal, MicroStrategy's Chief Operating Officer. "As our tests show, MicroStrategy allows companies to deliver greater value from their existing hardware and maximize incremental hardware to deploy more business intelligence applications to more people."

For more details, visit http://www.microstrategy.com/high-performance-bi/test-results/.

About MicroStrategy

Founded in 1989, MicroStrategy is a global leader in business intelligence (BI) technology. MicroStrategy provides integrated reporting, analysis, and monitoring software that helps leading organizations worldwide make better business decisions every day. Companies choose MicroStrategy for its ease-of-use, sophisticated analytics, and superior data and user scalability. MicroStrategy offers free reporting software that can be downloaded from its Website, http://www.microstrategy.com/freereportingsoftware. More information about MicroStrategy (Nasdaq: MSTR) is available at www.microstrategy.com.

MicroStrategy, MicroStrategy Business Intelligence Platform, MicroStrategy 9, and MicroStrategy Intelligence Server are either trademarks or registered trademarks of MicroStrategy Incorporated in the United States and certain other countries.  Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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SOURCE MicroStrategy Incorporated