Proven Performance for Accenture Duck Creek Policy Administration Commercial Lines

Transcription

1 Proven Performance for Accenture Duck Creek Policy Administration Commercial Lines Benchmark testing confirms scalability and performance of Microsoft SQL Server 2012 and servers based on the Intel Xeon processor E7 family Abstract Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel worked together to test the performance and scalability of Accenture Duck Creek insurance policy-administration software for Commercial Package Policies (CPPs) running on Microsoft SQL Server data management software, the Windows Server operating system, and servers based on the Intel Xeon processor E5 family and the Intel Xeon processor E7 family. The results of the tests were very impressive, confirming that the joint solution can comfortably meet the performance and scalability requirements of very large tier-one insurance carriers. Highlights of the tests include the following: Performance exceeded expectations. At peak production and with a simulated user community of 20,000, the system was able to process approximately $142 million in premium per hour and close to 70,000 transactions per day (including nightly batch renewals). The system also demonstrated tremendous scalability. The tests showed that new business premium tripled from $8.55 million per hour to $25.19 million per hour when the workload and number of processing servers was tripled. Policy page response times were less than 2 seconds for average-size and large-size policies (which make up 99 percent of a typical tier-one insurance carrier s workload). This report provides the full results of the tests, in addition to details about the test environment and the methodology used.

2 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This document is provided as-is. Information and views expressed in this document, including URL and other Internet Web site references, may change without notice. You bear the risk of using it. This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product. You may copy and use this document for your internal, reference purposes. Benchmark Testing Results: Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel ii

3 Table of Contents Overview... 1 Accenture Duck Creek Policy Administration Commercial Lines... 2 Benefits of SQL Server Benefits of Servers Based on Intel Xeon Processors... 2 Benchmark Test Environment... 3 Benchmark Test Configuration... 3 Test Hardware and Software... 4 Workloads... 5 Database... 5 Test Methodology... 6 Business Transactions... 6 Test Description and Results... 8 Performance Tests... 8 Scalability Tests... 9 Page Timing Tests Batch Renewal Tests Summary Appendix A: Benefits of SQL Server Appendix B: Benefits of Servers Based on Intel Processors Appendix C: Test Data Appendix D: Performance Statistics Performance Test Statistics Scalability Test Statistics Additional Information Benchmark Testing Results: Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel iii

4 Overview Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel worked together on benchmark testing of the Accenture Duck Creek policy administration enterprise software solution for the insurance industry running on Microsoft SQL Server 2012 data management software, the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system, and servers based on the Intel Xeon processor E5 family and the Intel Xeon processor E7 family. The goal of the tests was to assess the performance and scalability of the commercial lines Commercial Package Policies (CPPs) software solution for the workload volumes of tier-one insurance carriers, defined as carriers with more than $5 billion in annual premium. The benchmark tests were conducted at the Microsoft Platform Adoption Center (PAC) in Redmond, Washington, using a line-of-business CPP with property and general liability. The tests used a starting database that simulates the workloads of a typical tier-one commercial insurance carrier with 20,000 active agents and a $17.5 billion book of business: approximately 3.9 million policies and quotes, with $17.5 billion in written premium on bound policies, and approximately $26.3 billion in additional quoted premium. The performance tests measured the amount of premium the system was able to process for typical business transactions (such as quote, cancel, reinstate, endorse, and new business). The scalability tests investigated how well the system scaled with increasing workload and increasing number of processing servers. The test results were very impressive, confirming that the solution can meet the performance and scalability requirements of very large tier-one insurance carriers. Table 1 shows the amount of premium that the joint solution was able to process, per business transaction type: Table 1. Test results: premium processed on the joint solution Transaction type Daily premium processed Premium processed in a 260-business day year Quotes $182 million $47 billion Cancellations ( $28 million) ( $7 billion) Reinstatements $32 million $8 billion Endorsements $28 million $7 billion New business $154 million $39 billion Additional highlights of the benchmark tests included the following: The system processed more than 54,000 business transactions per day, and close to 70,000 business transactions per day including nightly batch renewals (for an average of 2.8 daily business transactions per user for a 20,000 user community). The system was able to process a batch renewal premium of $153.9 million in 28 minutes. Policy page response times were excellent. For an average-size policy, the page response time was approximately one second. For a large policy (2.5 times larger), the page response time was less than two seconds. Benchmark Testing Results: Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel 1

5 The system was able to scale almost linearly: new business premium tripled from $8.55 million per hour to $25.19 million per hour when the server count and workload was tripled. This white paper provides the full results of the tests, in addition to details about the test environment and the methodology used. Accenture Duck Creek Policy Administration Commercial Lines The benchmark tests used commercial lines CPP with property and general liability, built on the service-oriented XML-based Accenture Duck Creek EXAMPLE Platform. Accenture offers pre-built out-of-the-box templates with Insurance Services Office (ISO)-based content for CPPs. Carriers can use these templates to launch new insurance products quickly by adapting the base to their own market needs. The templates can inherit more bureau-based content as updates are released, ensuring that they are compliant with the latest bureau standards. For more information about Accenture policy software, see Benefits of SQL Server 2012 The underlying core of an insurance solution is the data collected; this data is maintained in an enterprise database such as Microsoft SQL Server Running on the Windows Server operating system, SQL Server 2012 provides a reliable, high performing, and scalable foundation for the Accenture policy administration solutions. For more detail about the advantages SQL Server brings to the solution, see Appendix A: Benefits of SQL Server Benefits of Servers Based on Intel Xeon Processors Servers based on the Intel Xeon processor E5 family and the Intel Xeon processor E7 family are well suited to the demands of large insurance carriers. Servers based on the Intel Xeon processor E5 family are often deployed in distributed architectures that are highly resilient and easily scaled through the addition of more servers. Servers based on the Intel Xeon processor E7 family provide the high-end scalability and availability needed to support large, transaction-intensive databases. The benchmark test environment takes advantage of both the distributed architecture of the Intel Xeon processor E5 family to support the needs of the application and the high-end scalability and availability of the Intel Xeon processor E7 family needed to support the large SQL Server database. For more detail about the role of servers based on Intel Xeon processors, see Appendix B: Benefits of Servers Based on Intel Xeon Processors. Benchmark Testing Results: Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel 2

6 Benchmark Test Environment To evaluate the performance and scalability of the Accenture Duck Creek policy administration software running on SQL Server, Windows Server, and servers based on Intel Xeon processors, a team from Accenture and Microsoft set up a test environment to emulate the workloads of a large insurance carrier. The following sections describe the environment used in the benchmark testing, in addition to the general methodology used by the test team. Benchmark Test Configuration The benchmark tests ran on Accenture Duck Creek EXAMPLE Platform 4.3.1, Microsoft SQL Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012, and servers based on the Intel Xeon processor E5 family and the Intel Xeon processor E7 family. The tests used a node-based configuration, in which all components of the Accenture Duck Creek EXAMPLE Platform, including the application and presentation (web) layers, were loaded onto virtual machines (or processing nodes) on a single virtual machine host server. In this configuration, each virtual machine acts as a complete, self-contained processing engine. This configuration was selected because node-based configurations have been demonstrated to perform slightly better than tier-based configurations, in which the application and presentation layers are placed on separate servers. The tests used the following components: 12 virtual machines on a virtual machine host 1 database server 2 load controllers, 3 load agents, and 1 load balancer 1 storage array Figure 1 shows the configuration the team used for the benchmark tests. Figure 1. Benchmark test configuration Benchmark Testing Results: Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel 3

7 Test Hardware and Software Table 2 describes the hardware and software used in the test environment. Table 2. Details of hardware used in the test environment Servers Details Virtual machine host (1) Virtual machines (12) Database server (1) Load-generation agents (3) and load-generation controllers (2) Load balancer (1) Storage array (1) HP ProLiant DL980 G7 o 1 TB random access memory (RAM) (128 x 8 GB dual in-line memory modules [DIMMs]) o 8 x 10 core Intel Xeon processor E GHz CPU o 1 x 10 Gbps Intel network interface card (NIC) active Windows Server 2012 Datacenter / HyperV Accenture Duck Creek EXAMPLE Platform Server and Accenture Duck Creek EXAMPLE Platform Express Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise (64-bit) 8 cores allocated, 16 GB RAM Accenture Duck Creek EXAMPLE Platform HP ProLiant DL980 G7 o 512 GB RAM (64 x 8 GB DIMMs) o 8S* x 10 core Intel Xeon processor E GHz CPU o 1 x 10 Gbps Intel NIC active Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise (64-bit) Microsoft SQL Server 2012 (64-bit) HP ProLiant BL460c (blade servers) o 48 GB RAM o 2 x 4 core Intel Xeon processor E GHz o Dual embedded Broadcom NetXtreme II 5708 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) NIC Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise (64-bit) Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate 4.0 F5 load balancer o 4 GB RAM o 1 x 1 Gb/s NIC active o RAM Cache enabled o 100 Mbps compression enabled 1 x X-IO Hyper Intelligent Storage Element (ISE) 730 (21 TB) for databases and TempDB o 30 x 900 GB serial attached Small Computer Interface (SAS) 10k drives o 10 x 200 GB solid state drives (SSDs) 1 x X-IO ISE 2 (12 TB) for logs and backup o 20 x 600 GB SAS 10k drives Storage array connected via Fibre Channel host bus adapter (HBA) o QLogic QLE2672 o Dual channel, 16 Gbps per channel *In the benchmark testing, only 40 cores were used. Benchmark Testing Results: Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel 4

8 Workloads The team used the Accenture Duck Creek ISO Commercial Lines templates in the benchmarking tests. These templates are highly complex insurance products. The team used three policy sizes in the benchmark tests, each with an increasing number of risks and locations. All tests used a CPP policy that includes commercial property and general ledger (GL). Note that average and large policies make up more than 99 percent of the workload of a typical tier-one insurance carrier s workload. Average An average policy includes two locations and two buildings per location. Each building has two associated risks. GL is assigned with two coverages per location and two exposures per coverage. Large A large policy is configured like an average policy, except with five locations. Ultra-large An ultra-large policy is configured like an average policy, except with 80 locations. The property risks on the large policy were limited to 220. Table 3 shows the workloads used in the tests, in premium per policy type: Table 3. Premium for policy transaction types Policy size New business, cancel, and reinstate Endorse Average $6,895 $10,327 Large $21,442 $27,674 Ultra-large $365,377 $368,358 Database The database used for the benchmark tests represents a very large commercial book of business, containing 3,912,500 total quotes/policies. The database was preloaded, or primed, with 94 percent average-size policies, 5 percent large-size policies, and 1 percent ultra-large size policies and quotes. Table 4 shows details of the database: Benchmark Testing Results: Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel 5

9 Table 4. Database details Test Number of quotes Number of policies Representative premium for quotes Representative premium for policies Average 2,206,605 1,471,100 $15,214,851,750 $10,143,234,500 Large 117,375 78,250 $2,516,754,750 $1,677,836,500 Ultra-large 23,475 15,650 $8,577,225,075 $5,718,150,050 Test Methodology The team used Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate 2012 to develop the test cases. The workload was increased at a rate of one simulated user per second until the desired, final user load was reached. The test was then run at that load for 120 minutes. The tests measured the number of business transactions of different types (quote, cancel, reinstate, endorse, new business, and enquire) per hour. These results were then translated into premium per hour, based on the policy size and mix of business transactions. Two SQL Server queries were used to determine the number of business transactions completed within the window of time: one query was run at the zero-minute mark and a second query was run at the 120-minute mark. Business Transactions The tests measured the number of business transactions, which are complex, multi-step activities representing the typical activities performed by insurance carriers. The team ran six types of business transactions: New business Inquiries Cancellations Reinstatements Endorsements Quotes Because of the length of the commercial property and GL entry process, complete automated quote entry was built for average-size policies only. Table 5 summarizes the activities involved in creating each business transaction. The instruction count shown in parentheses is the actual number of user interface level system instructions that were coded to perform each activity; these are summarized in the numbered lists for brevity. Benchmark Testing Results: Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel 6

10 Table 5. Activities in business transactions Business transaction (actual Activities number of instructions) New business (12) 1. Log on 2. Select the search tab 3. Search for a specific policy number 4. Open the policy 5. Click Next twice to get to the pricing page 6. Click Issue 7. After completion, click Logout Inquiry (29)* 1. Log on 2. Select the search tab 3. Search for a specific policy number 4. Open the policy 5. Click through all tabs in the policy 6. After completion, click Logout Cancel (13) 1. Log on 2. Select the search tab 3. Search for a specific policy number 4. Open the policy 5. Select Cancel 6. Set a cancel date 7. Click OK to complete the process 8. After completion, click Logout Reinstate (13) 1. Log on 2. Select the search tab 3. Search for a specific policy number 4. Open the policy 5. Select Reinstate 6. Set a reinstate date 7. Click OK to complete the process 8. After completion, click Logout Endorse (65)* 1. Log on 2. Open an existing policy and add an endorsement 3. Add a location to property 4. Add two buildings 5. Add one risk to each building and set its limits 6. Price the policy and move to GL 7. Add two coverages, each with two exposures to the new location 8. Price the policy and issue the endorsement 9. After completion, click Logout Quote (133)** Included CPP with property (number of locations, buildings per location, and risks per building depended on the quote size) and GL (multiple coverages, each with multiple exposures, depending on the quote size). * Because of the length of this test, only a summary of the total work is shown **Because of the length of this test, only a description of the resultant policy is shown Benchmark Testing Results: Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel 7

11 Test Description and Results To evaluate the performance and scalability of the Accenture Duck Creek policy administration software running on SQL Server, Windows Server, and servers based on Intel Xeon processors, the team from Accenture and Microsoft conducted four types of tests: Performance Tests Scalability Tests Page Timing Tests Batch Renewal Tests The test environment, including the hardware and software used, is described in the section Benchmark Test Environment. The details of these tests and a summary of the test results are described in the sections that follow. Note: The tests measured the number of business transactions (BTs), which are complex, multistep user-driven interactions. For more information, see the section Business Transactions. Performance Tests The performance tests were designed to identify the maximum throughput of the system under a peak load and to examine how the system performs when the total load exceeds the capacity. The team loaded the test environment with an increasing workload and measured the number of total business transactions completed per policy size and transaction type. The team then translated the results to premium processed per hour, based on the premium per policy size and per business transaction type. Following are specifics of the performance tests: Number of virtual machines: 12 (see the section Benchmark Test Configuration for more information) System capacity: 70 percent of peak capacity, peak capacity, and 277 percent of peak capacity (overloaded) Run time per test: 120 minutes Test composition: 94 percent average-size policies, 5 percent large-size policies, and 1 percent ultra-large size policies, each with the following mix of business transactions: new business (50 percent), endorse (20 percent), inquire (10 percent), cancel (10 percent), and reinstate (10 percent) Table 6 shows the results of the performance tests, in premium processed per hour, per transaction type and policy size. Benchmark Testing Results: Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel 8

12 Table 6. Performance test results System capacity Size Hourly premium processed Cancel Reinstate Endorse New business Sum per policy size Total 70 percent Peak 277 percent Average $6,333,058 $6,050,363 $18,201,338 $29,693,318 $60,278,077 Large $900,564 $943,448 $2,075,550 $4,888,776 $8,808,338 Ultralarge $1,826,885 $2,192,262 $3,315,222 $12,057,441 $19,391,810 Average $8,274,000 $8,667,015 $25,254,679 $43,428,158 $85,623,852 Large $1,479,498 $1,672,476 $3,569,946 $7,493,979 $14,215,899 Ultralarge $4,201,836 $5,846,032 $6,077,907 $25,941,767 $42,067,542 Average $6,960,503 $7,105,298 $20,814,069 $35,664,388 $70,544,258 Large $1,222,194 $1,275,799 $3,085,651 $5,875,108 $11,458,752 Ultralarge $3,653,770 $4,019,147 $1,289,253 $19,913,047 $28,875,217 ~$88M ~$142M ~$111M The performance tests show that at peak production, the system was able to process approximately $142 million in premium per hour. At 277 percent capacity, an overloaded condition, the system was still able to process substantial premium. Note: For the number of business transactions measured, see Appendix C: Test Data. For statistical details of key sub-systems during the performance tests, see Appendix D: Performance Test Statistics. Scalability Tests The scalability tests were designed to confirm that adding processing nodes makes it possible to maintain response times and transactional throughput per user as the load increases. The team increased the number of Accenture Duck Creek EXAMPLE Platform processing nodes and the workload in a fixed ratio and kept the system operating slightly below peak utilization (at approximately 70 percent of peak). The team measured the total number of business transactions per policy size and transaction type. Following are specifics of the scalability tests: Number of virtual machines: 4, 8, and 12 Workload: 1x (full workload), 2x (double workload), and 3x (triple workload) Run time per test: 120 minutes Test composition: 94 percent average-size policies, 5 percent large-size policies, and 1 percent ultra-large size policies Benchmark Testing Results: Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel 9

13 o o Average-size policies consists of quote (50 percent) and new business (50 percent) Large-size and ultra-large size policies consists of new business (50 percent) and endorse (50 percent) Table 7 shows the results for the scalability tests. Table 7. Scalability test results Workload, (number of virtual machines) New business Quote Endorse Premium Increase Premium Increase Premium Increase Total premium Increase 1x (4 virtual machines) 2x (8 virtual machines) 3x (12 virtual machines) $17,107, $10,852, $9,065, $37,025, $38,554, x $22,326, x $17,375, x $78,256, x $50,372, x $30,434, x $19,359, x $100,166, x The scalability tests show that as the workload increases in proportion to the number of virtual machines (or processing nodes), the amount of premium processed increases almost linearly. Figure 2 shows the results graphically. Figure 2. Scaling as number of nodes and number of users increase Note: For the number of business transactions measured, see Appendix C: Test Data. For statistical details of key sub-systems during the scalability tests, see Appendix D: Performance Test Statistics. Page Timing Tests The page timing tests were designed to measure the average amount of time it takes to process a policy page. Benchmark Testing Results: Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel 10

14 The team ran two page timing tests: one for average-size policies and one for large-size policies. The team measured the average time to process a page with the system under peak productive load and with no load. The load was generated using a secondary test controller and agents. The tests used a single simulated user, while the load was generated using the performance test (see the Performance Tests section) at peak production. Each test used comparable sets of pages and incorporated page rating. Following are specifics of the page timing tests: Number of virtual machines: 12 Run time per test: 30 minutes Test 1 composition: 100 percent average-size policy, quote Test 2 composition: 100 percent large-size policy, endorse Table 8 shows the results of the policy page timing tests. Table 8. Policy page timing test results Test Average page times without load Average page times with peak load Average quote 0.58 seconds 0.95 seconds Large endorse 1.12 seconds 1.64 seconds The page timing tests show that with increasing load on a static system, policy page response times increase; however, with a maximum (or peak) productive load, they still maintain an average of less than two seconds. These response times comfortably meet the requirements of large insurance carriers. Batch Renewal Tests The batch renewal tests were designed to measure the number of renewals through a web service call in a typical customer implementation. The team generated a batch script to process renewals through a web service call; with no other activity in the environment, the script was simultaneously run against each of the 12 virtual machines running Accenture Duck Creek EXAMPLE Platform Server and the number of renewals was measured. A quiet system with no other activity occurring was tested because renewals are typically run after business hours. Following are specifics of the renewal tests: Number of virtual machines: 12 Run time per test: 60 minutes Test composition: 94 percent average-size policies, 5 percent large-size policies, and 1 percent ultra-large size policies Benchmark Testing Results: Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel 11

15 Table 9 shows the results of the renewal tests. Table 9. Renewal test results Number of virtual machines Policy size Renewal premium Total renewal premium Average $196,431, Large $37,802,246 Ultra-large $100,113,298 $334,347,199 The tests showed that the joint solution could meet the renewal requirements of a typical tier-one insurance carrier. During a 60-minute timeframe, the system processed more than $334 million renewals in a quiet system. This means that the joint solution could renew a $40 billion book of business by running for 20 minutes per night for 365 days. Summary The results of the benchmark tests conducted by Accenture and Microsoft with the Accenture Duck Creek insurance policy administration software for CPP running on SQL Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2, and servers based on Intel Xeon processors were impressive. Highlights of the tests include the following results: At peak production and with a simulated user community of 20,000, the system was able to process approximately $142 million in premium per hour and close to 70,000 transactions per day (including nightly batch renewals). The number of business transactions processed per day exceeded 54,000 (for an average of 2.8 business transactions per user per day for a 20,000 user community). The system was able to process a batch renewal premium of $153.9 million in 28 minutes. The tests showed that new business premium tripled from $8.55 million per hour to $25.19 million per hour when the workload and number of processing servers was tripled. Policy page response times were less than 2 seconds for average and large policy sizes. These results confirm that the joint solution can meet the performance and scalability requirements of large tier-one insurance carriers. Benchmark Testing Results: Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel 12

16 Appendix A: Benefits of SQL Server 2012 The benchmark tests were run on SQL Server 2012, a comprehensive, integrated, and reliable datamanagement software solution that provides an enterprise-ready database framework for Accenture Duck Creek policy administration software. Using SQL Server 2012 provides customers with many benefits, including: Scalability and performance features. SQL Server includes many features that can help Accenture customers scale and maintain performance as the number of policies they handle grows. Required nines uptime availability and data protection. Accenture customers can protect their mission-critical databases from downtime and data loss with the new integrated high availability and disaster recovery solution, SQL Server 1, 2, 3 AlwaysOn. Faster deployment. On average, SQL Server database administrators (DBAs) can install and configure new database servers in 1.5 hours, while the largest competitor s DBAs can take 6 hours or more. 4 Lower hardware costs. SQL Server can run on standard commodity server hardware, which can dramatically lower the total cost of ownership (TCO). Lower software costs. The list price of SQL Server is a third of the largest competitors; 5 in addition, SQL Server includes major database-related features, such as high availability; remote disaster recovery; partitioning; data compression; transparent data encryption; spatial; master data management; complex event processing; extract, transform, and load (ETL); online analytical processing (OLAP); data mining; reporting services; and self-service business intelligence (BI) tools. Competitors licensing models add costs for options and add-ins. 6 Simpler systems management and lower staffing costs. SQL Server DBAs can typically manage four times as many physical databases as a competitor s DBAs, leading to an estimated annual savings of $5,779 in administrative costs FEF9550EFD44/Microsoft%20SQL%20Server%20AlwaysOn%20Solutions%20Guide%20for%20High%20Availability%20and%20Disaster%2 0Recovery.docx Benchmark Testing Results: Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel 13

17 per database, a 460 percent difference in annual cost of administration per database. 7 Fewer security vulnerabilities. Since 2002, SQL Server has recorded the fewest reported vulnerabilities of any of the major database platforms as compiled by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). 8 By using SQL Server 2012, Accenture customers can save with reduced hardware, administration, and support fees, which translate into substantially lower costs over the life of the system. For more information about SQL Server, see For the top 12 reasons to choose SQL Server, see Benchmark Testing Results: Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel 14

18 Appendix B: Benefits of Servers Based on Intel Processors Servers based on Intel Xeon processors are well suited to the demands of policy administration software and can provide dramatic cost savings in comparison with proprietary reduced instruction set computers (RISCs) and mainframe systems. Servers based on the Intel Xeon processor E5 family are often deployed in distributed architectures that are highly resilient and easily scaled through the addition of servers. Servers based on the Intel Xeon processor E7 family provide the high-end scalability and availability needed to support large, transaction-intensive databases. These large and robust servers include integrated support for: Scalable performance. A single eight-socket server based on the Intel Xeon processor E product family provides up to 80 processing cores, 160 threads, and 4 TB of memory for high-volume, transaction-intensive workloads. Large cache configurations (up to 30 MB per processor) keep frequently used data close to the processor cores to reduce latency and increase throughput. Data protection. Advanced circuitry detects and corrects errors across all major subsystems and communication pathways and isolates uncorrectable errors so they do not poison other data. High availability. Built-in failover and automatic reconfiguration capabilities help to maintain uninterrupted operation. Machine Check Architecture Recovery (MCA Recovery) works in tandem with Windows Server to provide automated system recovery in complex error scenarios. Serviceability. Built-in support for predictive failure analysis and partitioning lets administrators identify and replace problematic components before they impact performance and without bringing down the system for maintenance. SQL Server 2012 can take advantage of the scalability features of Intel Xeon processor E7 family: 8 sockets or more, 10 cores, and 20 threads per socket and up to 2 TB of RAM in an eight-socket configuration. These servers deliver advanced reliability 9 to increase the mission-critical resilience. The hardware and software work together to deliver advanced support for data error detection and recovery, multiple levels of redundancy, and system recovery. For more information about Intel Xeon processors, see Benchmark Testing Results: Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel 15

19 Appendix C: Test Data This section provides data collected during the benchmark testing. This data was used to calculate the amount of premium that the system was able to process. Table 10 shows the performance test results for a peak load (in business transactions *BTs+), and the calculated averages, which are also based on typical daily work schedules and workloads for large insurance carriers. Table 10. Peak performance test results System capacity Policy size Cancel Reinstate BT/2-hour test period Quote /endorse New business Inquire Total BT/2- hour test period Total BT /hour Total BT/ hour Peak load Average 2,400 2,514 4,891 12,597 2,704 25,106 12,553 Large , Ultralarge ,382 Table 11 shows the scalability test results for 12 virtual machines (in BTs) and the calculated averages, which are also based on typical daily work schedules and workloads for large insurance carriers. Table 11. Scalability test results (in business transactions per hour) Number of virtual machines Policy size BT/2- hour test period New business Quote /endorse Total BT/2- hour test period Total BT /hour Total BT/ hour 12 Average 4,315 4,414 8,729 4,364.5 Large Ultra-large ,649 To calculate the premium processed per BT per day, a typical 8-hour work schedule was used: 6 hours of quote/endorse BTs (from both the scalability and performance tests) and a 2-hour mix of the BTs (from the performance tests). Table 12 shows the resulting BTs per hour used to calculate the premium processed per business transaction per typical day. Benchmark Testing Results: Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel 16

20 Table 12. Business transactions per hour for a typical day Business transactions (BTs) per day Size Quote (48.2%) Cancel (4.7%) Reinstate (4.9%) Endorse (12.5%) New business (24.5%) Inquire (5.2%) Sum BTs/day Total BTs/day Average 26,484* 2,400 2,514 4,891 12,597 2,704 51,590 Large ,740** ,881 Ultra-large *** ,934 ( 2.8 BT /user /day) *The quote value used is from the scalability test for 6 hours: (4,414 BTs X 6 hours); note that large and ultra-large scalability tests for quotations were not run **The endorse value used combined the results from the scalability test for 6 hours and the 2-hour performance test results: (258 BT for 2 hours +[247 BTs X 6 hours]) ***The endorse value used combined the results from the scalability test for 6 hours and the 2-hour performance test results: (33 BT for 2 hours +[34 BTs X 6 hours]) To calculate the average premium processed per transaction type, the test team used the premium values per transaction, as shown in Table 13. Table 13. Premium for policy transaction types Policy size New business, cancel, and reinstate Endorse Average $6,895 $10,327 Large $21,442 $27,674 Ultra-large $365,377 $368,358 Table 14 shows the amount of premium that the joint solution was able to process, per business transaction type, taking typical daily work schedules and workloads into account Table 14. Test results: premium processed on the joint solution Transaction type Daily premium processed Quotes $182,607,180* $47,477,866,800 Cancellations ( $27,910,667) ( $7,256,773,420) Reinstatements $32,371,046 $8,416,471,960 Endorsements $28,336,089** $7,367,383,140 New business $153,727,807 $39,969,229,820 Premium processed in a 260 businessday year *For quotes, only average-size policies were tested: (26,484 BT x $6,895) **To show the difference between the original polcy and the updated policy, the following calculation was used: ((4,891 BT x [$10,327-$6,895])+(1,740 BT x [$27,674-$21,442])+( 237 BT x [$368,358-$365,377])) Benchmark Testing Results: Accenture, Microsoft, and Intel 17