ImageRight Scalability Testing

Transcription

1 ImageRight Scalability Testing TECHNICAL WHITE PAPER 2019

2 Table of Contents Why scalability matters 1 System design and planning 2 Guidance on scaling 2 Basic architecture 2 High scalability and high availability deployment model 3 Scaling the ImageRight Application Server 4 Scaling the ImageRight Browser Server 6 Scaling the Image Service 7 Conclusion 9

3 Why scalability matters When your company grows, your technology systems feel the impact. All of sudden, there are more users, more data, and more strain on resources. So how do you ensure that your current environment grows alongside your business? The answer is simple software scalability. Scalability testing measures how well a system, network, or process handles an increase in work load. Businesses use the results to evaluate whether a solution can be expected to scale to meet their needs, and explore everything from adding additional users to adding additional hardware. However, the specific hardware used in these testing scenarios has a significant effect on the results. In June 2019, Vertafore conducted scalability testing on ImageRight version 6.8. Built specifically for the insurance industry, ImageRight is an enterprise content management and workflow system that gives companies the power to improve processes, reduce expense ratios, and grow their businesses. The results of this study are intended to demonstrate successful horizontal and vertical scalability of ImageRight along with your business. Vertafore recommends that you consider multiple variables to determine how best to scale ImageRight to meet your growing needs and optimize your system. This study helps identify: Which tiers within the ImageRight infrastructure can be scaled How to forecast the hardware needed to support your growing business Specific hardware features that improve performance 1 The metrics in this document are based on internal testing of the product and were performed in an isolated network environment. Please note that implementations in production will vary and may result in different metrics than Vertafore s testing scenarios. Testing performed to identify these recommendations were performed on ImageRight 6.8 and Vertafore Image Service 18R3. The ImageRight Application Server and Web Server were virtual hardware. imageright scalability white paper 1

4 System design and planning guidance on scaling Many factors impact performance including hardware specifications, browser type, network usage, image storage device speeds, database maintenance routines, and workflow scripts. Prior to implementing any change in your infrastructure, it is important to run diagnostic tools to identify the root cause of the reported performance concerns. There are many ways you can improve ImageRight performance: 1. Adjust the hardware for an end-user or server machine by adding improved or additional CPUs. 2. Break out processing for expensive transactions like heavy workflow scripts or processing. 3. Configure a cluster of servers for the web or business tier. It is important to note that the hardware used to provide testing results was not production-level hardware. Given each environment is different, the intent of this testing was to demonstrate scalability. This data can then be compared to your environment s performance, which can ultimately be used to forecast any potential impact to your infrastructure. basic architecture ImageRight contains the following main architectural components that work together to deliver content and workflow capabilities to users: ImageRight Application Server: This tier contains all business logic and is the only component that has access to the database and image repository. This component exposes a RESTful endpoint to access and modify content and workflow items. The ImageRight application server is a stateless component, requiring authentication to all calls from any client. This tier supports horizontal scaling using Redis Cache to ensure cached information is accessible to all application servers in the cluster. ImageRight database: ImageRight supports Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle databases to store all metadata for content and workflow items. ImageRight Browser Server: This tier supports the browser based client and exposes a RESTful endpoint for integration. imageright scalability white paper 2

5 high scalability and high availability deployment model Internet 3 rd Party Partner ImageRight Browser Client Firewall DMZ Browser Server Browser Server Browser Server Firewall Clients & Auxilliary Services ImageRight Desktop Client Receiver(s) Import Service(s) Image Service(s) Load Balancer Business Tier Application Server Application Server Application Server Cache Server Firewall Data Tier ImageRight Database Server Image Repository imageright scalability white paper 3

6 scaling the imageright application server The ImageRight Application Server contains all business logic and responds to all incoming content and workflow requests. You should consider scaling the ImageRight Application Server horizontally or vertically when CPUs demonstrate consistently high behavior (typically 80% or more). Slower than expected application response times do not immediately result in the need to scale the application. Other factors such as database maintenance and network utilization may also affect end-user performance. It is recommended to use diagnostic tools to identify the root cause of degraded or slow performance. When diagnostic tools identify a resource bottleneck on the ImageRight Application Server, you can then scale vertically by adding more CPUs, or horizontally by configuring a cluster of ImageRight Application Servers. Vertafore s intent was to demonstrate that the ImageRight Application Server can be scaled horizontally by identifying 2 key factors: 1) The overhead when configuring multiple application servers; and, 2) The scaling trajectory when introducing multiple application servers. In testing clustered ImageRight Application Servers, Vertafore experienced an approximate 20% overhead to manage the cluster. This result shows that scaling horizontally is beneficial when the need is to support higher numbers of concurrent users. As an example, based on the machine specifications and test profile described below, a single server with a 3.0 Ghz processor and 8 CPUs on 4 Cores would support approximately 2400 users in a cluster configuration compared to 3000 users in a single server configuration. When adding additional application servers, Vertafore is able to achieve near linear concurrent user support. test results The metrics below are based on simulations of users accessing the browser client only. Table 1-1. Application Server Specifications ImageRight Application Server Specifications CPU 3.00 GHz # of Cores 8 Memory Operating System 16 GB Windows Server 2012 R2 imageright scalability white paper 4

7 Test profile per hour per user: 25% search 10% download/retrieval 10% upload 5% URL lookup 50% task release The ratio between transactions within the test profile is consistent as users are increased or decreased. Chart 1-1. Maximum concurrent users ImageRight Scalability # Concurrent Users # App Servers The performance results of 10,000 concurrent users reported in this technical white paper present data and workloads run on an isolated network on an AWS environment (Microsoft & ImageRight) and system configurations. Actual performance in real customer environments with production workloads may vary depending on many factors such as system configuration, workflow characteristics, image size & complexity and data volume. The results presented here are not guaranteed to be repeatable in other systems. The image service plays a key part in the response time to retrieve images. This component should be scaled appropriately to achieve acceptable image response time and is discussed later in this white paper. imageright scalability white paper 5

8 During testing, all workflow processing was performed within the application server, meaning no external workflow processors were used. An external workflow processor is a service that can be run on a separate machine from the ImageRight Application Server to handle only workflow processing for script steps. To further scale the application server, heavy script steps that communicate with other systems can be configured to balance this workload. Heavy script steps could be described as one or more of following: 1. Workflow steps that perform frequent evaluation of a significant number of tasks (e.g. a gatekeeper step). 2. Workflow steps that perform long running or complex queries that communicate with third-party systems or databases. If the application is reaching high CPU usage and users are experiencing slow performance, you may want to identify any potential heavy script steps within your workflow. Then, configure the system to allow these steps to be processed by an external workflow processor, rather than using the workflow processing engine internal to the ImageRight Application Server. scaling the imageright browser server The ImageRight Browser Server is the gateway to the ImageRight Application Server, and as such, very little processing is performed within this tier of the infrastructure. The Browser Server also communicates with the Image Service, which processes images to be rendered in the browser. In a test with approximately 2500 users, the web server averaged CPU utilization of approximately 40% using the same test profile described above. You can add additional web servers as needed and configure a load balancer with sticky sessions to achieve horizontal scaling. Table 2-1. ImageRight Browser Server Specifications ImageRight Browser Server Specifications CPU 3.00 GHz # of Cores 4 Memory 8 GB Operating System Windows Server 2012 R2 imageright scalability white paper 6

9 scaling the image service The Image Service has three main functions that support the ImageRight Browser Client: 1. Convert images to render in the browser. 2. Store images in a local cache for fast retrieval for subsequent requests. 3. Package content for distribution via the browser client, for example , download, or print. In ImageRight version 6.2 and above, images are encrypted in the Image Service local cache. As a result, additional CPU overhead is incurred to encrypt and decrypt images resulting in potentially slower performance than previous versions. During Vertafore s testing represented in table 3-1, Vertafore experienced roughly 50% reduction in performance if the CPU does not support AES-NI. AES-NI is a specific hardware instruction set designed to improve performance of AES encryption and decryption. Test profile per user per hour: 200 pages viewed 1 document converted to PDF for download to the user s PC 5 pages uploaded 0.2 documents printed 0.1 annotations saved Chart 2-1. Maximum concurrent users to achieve 2 second page retrieval One Image Service No Encryption Two Image Services Encryption w/o AES-NI CPU imageright scalability white paper 7

10 Table 3-1. Vertafore Image Service Specifications CPU 2.00 GHz # of Cores 4, AES-NI unsupported Memory 8 GB Operating System Windows Server 2012 R2 Vertafore performed analysis of the encryption and decryption algorithms used within the Image Service on AES-NI enabled CPUs to validate potential performance improvements when enabling AES-NI CPUs by encrypting and decrypting 1 MB images. Vertafore experienced approximately 20% performance improvement with AES-NI enabled CPUs. Encryption and decryption are processor-intensive, so scaling this tier of the system can be also be achieved by adding CPUs and memory. This can be configured to allow multiple image services to share the same local cache. Table 3-2. Vertafore Image Service Specifications CPU 4.00 GHz # of Cores 4, Memory 8 GB Operating System Windows Server 2016 Standard imageright scalability white paper 8

11 Chart 3-2. Average Encryption Speed for 1MB Image (MS) 1000 AES-NI Disabled AES-NI Enabled Encryption Decryption Conclusion ImageRight is an enterprise content management and workflow system that gives organizations the power to improve processes, reduce expense ratios, and grow their businesses. Built specifically for the insurance industry, ImageRight not only delivers complete files packaged for insurance, but also contains intelligent workflows designed to provide real-time insight, ensuring that the right work gets routed to the right person at the right time. To provide proof of ImageRight s capacity to meet the needs of insurance carriers, MGAs, and brokers, Vertafore conducted scalability testing of 10,000 concurrent users in June 2019 in a clustered application server environment. Based on the results of this testing, it has been demonstrated that the ImageRight infrastructure can successfully be horizontally and vertically scaled to meet your growing needs. With the use of performance diagnostic tools and evaluation of your current system, you can easily identify bottlenecks within your infrastructure, and scale the system appropriately to achieve success. For more information on the scalability capacity of ImageRight, contact your Vertafore Account Manager at or visit vertafore.com. imageright scalability white paper 9

12 th St Denver, CO, Vertafore.com 2019 Vertafore, Inc. and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. Trademarks contained herein are owned by Vertafore, Inc. This document is for informational purposes only. Vertafore makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to the information provided here. Information and views expressed in this document may change without notice. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.