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Onyx Announces Benchmark for Web-based CRM Scalability

Onyx Software asserts it has set the standard for CRM enterprise application scalability by sustaining sub-second user response times while scaling the Onyx Employee Portal (OEP) 3.0 to more than 40,000 concurrent users in a formal performance benchmark.

All results were validated by the Microsoft Partner Solution Center and Enterprise Computing Lab.

Onyx used LoadRunner, a market-leading load testing tool from Mercury Interactive, to benchmark OEP 3.0, running on Microsoft .NET Enterprise Servers, including Microsoft SQL Server 2000.

"The 40,000 user benchmark is significant because it was performed under rigorous, real-world business conditions, and it was conducted in direct response to a competitor's recent benchmark," said Mary Reeder, senior vice president of Research and Development for Onyx. "On June 4, 2001, PeopleSoft announced it had achieved a 30,000 user benchmark with the latest version of its CRM software. Onyx has now bested PeopleSoft's benchmark by more than 10,000 users, and used roughly forty percent less hardware to do it."

Testing Methodology and Results

In this test, Mercury Interactive's LoadRunner 7.0 was used to emulate 40,000 OEP concurrent users, serviced by a server farm of 4-way and 8-way Windows 2000 Web and application servers. All application servers connected to a central 8-way database server running SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition. The 4-way servers contained four 550MHz or 700MHz Pentium III Zeon processors, and the 8-way servers contained eight 700MHz Pentium III Xeon processors. Onyx used Mercury Interactive's LoadRunner to incrementally add thousands of user sessions to the test environment until more than 40,000 simultaneous user sessions were active. Concurrency numbers have not been extrapolated from a smaller sample, as is the case in many benchmarks.

The use cases for the simulation included common business functions executed by salespeople, customer service representatives and marketing personnel, which simulated the cross-departmental scalability of the application. The business scenarios and overall testing methodology emerged from more than six months of client-use analysis, as well as experience in previous benchmarks conducted in collaboration with large enterprise customers using client-mandated transaction rates.

"We congratulate Onyx on this new CRM high-water mark," said Chris Atkinson, vice president of .NET Enterprise Solutions, Microsoft. "Onyx continues to push its applications to the limit. Providing better and better performance by leveraging the power of SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition and Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Onyx is able to deliver tremendous value to customers."

"As one of the technology providers for Microsoft's Enterprise Computing Lab, Mercury Interactive helps Microsoft customers, such as Onyx, validate the performance and scalability of their offerings," said Simon Berman, director of product marketing at Mercury Interactive. "We are pleased to have been part of Onyx's successful performance benchmark."

Earlier this year, Onyx was the first enterprise CRM vendor to receive Veritest certification on Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server and the high-end Windows 2000 Datacenter Server. In addition Onyx's most recent product release incorporated complete Unicode support at all tiers of the application, ensuring the product will operate in any geography, in any language.

Onyx will publish a white paper on the benchmark later this week and will make it available at www.onyx.com.

About Onyx Software

Onyx Software Corp is a global supplier of customer relationship management (CRM) enterprise applications that power a company's entire business world, connecting sales, marketing and service organizations with customers, prospects and partners. Through an innovative mix of Internet technology, strategic services and customer commitment, Onyx helps companies create the seamless, branded customer experiences they need to forge competitive advantage and build real business value. Its reliable, scalable, flexible, holistic solutions enable companies to attract, acquire and retain customers and partners across all channels and touch points. Onyx customers include American Express, Broadwing, Commerce One, Credit Suisse, Dreyfus, Portland Trail Blazers, Prudential Investments and The Regence Group. Get more information at 888/ask-onyx, or info@onyx.com.