Elite 3E Load Capability Exceeds Demands of the World's Largest Firms

LOS ANGELES  01/30/2007

Thomson Elite has completed a series of performance load and scalability tests that verified that the company’s Elite 3E suite of business optimization applications could scale to support the needs of the world’s largest professional services organizations. Thomson Elite is part of The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC) and a worldwide provider of business software to professional services firms.

With no errors, Elite 3E was able to sustain a load of 3,000 concurrent users on a recommended platform using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and Intel/AMD 64-bit servers against a database similar to that of a large international firm. The application used a low to moderate percentage of available CPU resources, indicating 3E’s capacity for growth beyond the tested parameters.

As a conservative estimate, a 3,000 concurrent-user load in a professional services organization would represent an organization of approximately 11,000 total users. 

Thomson Elite conducted the tests at the Microsoft Test Lab in Issaquah, Wash., during November 2006.  The environment and scenario simulated a demanding workload comprising several typically heavy areas of operation within the Elite 3E suite of business optimization applications. The testers utilized the Segue SilkPerformer automation tool to specify the actual steps that a user would take when performing each specific task (keyboard and mouse activity) as well as to randomize the data.

“Because of our close relationship with Thomson Elite, we were glad to host these application performance tests in our labs on the SQL Server 2005 platform,” said Norm Thomas, director of business development for the professional services industry, Microsoft Corp.  “We appreciate the company’s investment in our technology and look forward to continued plans to support the development of Elite 3E.”

The results showed that CPU usage on the servers was low, indicating room for growth even beyond 3,000 users.  The average processor utilization for the 3E application servers was approximately 10 percent, while the same metric for the 3E database server averaged below 58 percent. Overall, average response time per script was low and very consistent, given the heavy load the servers sustained.

The results of the tests will drive the hardware recommendations for future Thomson Elite customers wanting to scale upwards by utilizing multiple 3E application servers.  As a secondary benefit, Thomson Elite will have an opportunity to locate areas of contention within the database that might prevent 3E from scaling even further on 64-bit hardware.
 
Thomson Elite
Thomson Elite is a leading provider of integrated information solutions to professional services firms worldwide. Thomson Elite is a business within The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC) and is a premier provider of financial and practice management systems to the legal industry and to other professional services markets, including accounting, marketing services, and management and IT consulting. For more information, visit www.thomsonelite.com.

The Thomson Corporation
The Thomson Corporation (www.thomson.com) is a global leader in providing essential electronic workflow solutions to business and professional customers. With operational headquarters in Stamford, Conn., Thomson provides value-added information, software tools and applications to more than 20 million users in the fields of law, tax, accounting, financial services, scientific research and healthcare. The Corporation’s common shares are listed on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC).

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