Microsoft CRM Performance Scaling Analysis

In January 2004, the Microsoft Business Solutions CRM team published an initial performance report titled "Microsoft Business Solutions CRM Performance Test." That white paper was designed to assist an organization in specifying an initial hardware infrastructure supporting 1,000 users performing a medium-heavy sales force automation workload over an 8-hour period. Microsoft published a new white paper in October 2004 titled "Microsoft CRM Performance Scaling Analysis". This new white paper extends the original work by focusing on a range of organization sizes from 100 users up to 1,000 users and the key hardware features that contribute to Microsoft CRM system performance. Download White Paper Now (394 KB) The results, while not exhaustively complete, should provide insight into a range of scaling performance for a small business organization using Microsoft CRM version 1.2. As was the case with the original white paper, this is not to be confused with a scalability benchmark, which sets a threshold for the maximum number of users supported under the test hardware configuration. This white paper is designed to be complementary to the original white paper and to the Microsoft Business Solutions CRM Implementation Guide Version 1.2.   TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary - Performance Test Design and Measures - Summary of Results   Performance Test Details - Test Framework - User Simulation - Initial Default Test Hardware Configuration - Microsoft CRM Test Database - Microsoft CRM Environment Setup - Performance Test Use-Cases - Workload Summary - Microsoft CRM Customization - Performance Tuning   Microsoft CRM Performance Test Results - Typical Processor Utilization - Response Time Distribution Summary - User Scaling Summary - User Scaling by Number of Processor Summary - Effects of Caching Ad Hoc Query Plans Test Result Summary - Processor Frequency Test Result Summary - Memory Test Result Summary - Physical Address Extension Test Summary - Hyper-Threading Test Summary - CRM Consolidation Test Summary   Conclusion Testing was conducted for Microsoft CRM Sales Standard version 1.2 running on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft SQL Server 2000 (SP3). These performance tests did not include Microsoft CRM Sales for Outlook (the Outlook client) offline scenarios or the replication of disparate Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (MSDE 2000) databases.