| [ Capacity Planning ]
Lexcel Solution Profiles:
Performance Benchmarking | Advanced Fraud Protection Services
Capacity planning must be a proactive continuous process of Best Industry Practices performed at any change of your transaction processing system. Successful organizations are proficient in reducing costs of system resources, assessing capacity demands in their current environment, and implementing automated ways to reduce the time and complexity of the benchmarking process. Every core business objective, ranging from regulatory mandates to pre- and post-freeze periods, are candidates for benchmarking system capacity and processing integrity.
In performance benchmarking the purpose is to measure the utilization or consumption of system resources on the target system in exchange for completion of a business objective, i.e. the processing of a single transaction. Regardless of the indicator being examined, it is necessary to define benchmarks in advance - the targeted standards or levels to which measured conditions will be compared, often to finite degrees of success.
Due to the dynamic and ever-changing nature of real time transaction-processing environments, achieving benchmarks can be a difficult process with many obstacles. From the CIO to the systems analyst, it is imperative to have a defined testing methodology of benchmarking to keep the IT infrastructure aligned with change. Without consistency, repetition and insightful interpretation of results in your capacity planning and disaster recovery schemes, your organization may be missing target goals and falling behind the competition.
Benchmarking Objectives Your benchmarking system must be configured to initiate the appropriate level of business load on the target system without incurring any resource constraints. To perform a benchmark, the benchmark system should not impact the target system results and must be fully capable of producing an action that consumes system resources without internal resource restraints. A well thought out capacity plan takes into account resource capacity, business volumes, disaster recovery and performance analysis.
Lexcel TestSystem® CapSystem®, Lexcel’s capacity planning solution, is your answer to implementing a proactive approach to benchmarking and managing end-to-end transaction processing for the unique disciplines of Performance, Stress and Capacity testing within the payment technology industry.
CapSystem® accelerates Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) transaction streaming, custom transaction configuration and statistical transaction exchange reporting for ATM, Point of Sale, eCommerce and Payment Network systems. Through CapSystem, you are able to target specific areas of your organization’s systems to put under the microscope for the purpose of creating, identifying and solving potential system bottlenecks or application overloads. With both Acquirer and Issuer Modes, CapSystem ensures all end-to-end testing requirements are achieved.
Scheduling and regularly performing capacity tests is an essential Best Industry Practice for maintaining a successful organization. The positive impacts of having a well-defined benchmarking process:
- Identify capacity bottlenecks within a test environment before they are experienced in the production environment.
- Optimize CPU utilization and load balancing.
- Expand the revenue stream with 100% uptime.
- Save on additional hardware expenditures during seasonal volume peaks.
- Strengthen customer confidence and market leadership.
Successful organizations plan for and test performance in extreme conditions when weaknesses in applications or hardware systems surface. This entails the generation of millions of unique transactions to gauge the maximum throughput on existing hardware and software configurations. CapSystem gives you the capability to benchmark and determine overall system capacity and system processing sustainability under peak loads ranging from 5 to 2,000 Transactions per Second (TPS).
The benchmark process begins by having a clear understanding of three key variables:
- Target system environment.
- Resources available.
- How resources are used to accomplish business requirements.
Designing a benchmark system with CapSystem starts and ends with exercising the complete transaction path beginning with the data communications interface and includes multiple access calls to a database, Host Security Module (HSM) loads for PIN, MAC and EMV processing, and transaction logging.
Once a process for exercising the transaction path is in place it’s necessary to monitor for over-utilized resources. Over-utilized CPU and memory may indicate an undersized system. Slow access or high CPU utilization on disk and database access may indicate configuration or sizing issues. Software and configuration problems may also surface in extended processing or response times.
CapSystem includes testing for success where maximum transaction volumes are met under specific guidelines. It is important to identify areas of strength and correct areas of weakness (an undersized system, configuration or sizing issues, extended processing or response times) that are inherent in these events.
As the complete transaction path is performed, transaction volume and arrival rate measurements assess host system capacity and performance, based on predetermined success criteria. Afterwards, the results are available for comparison to gauge the success or failure of the executed tests.
Customer Successes Organizations that have modeled their benchmarking and capacity planning methodology around Lexcel TestSystem CapSystem have realized financial success, market growth and advantages over their competitors. Regardless of organization size or transaction specialization, each has achieved their target goals and made Lexcel a mission-critical component of their long-term capacity planning. |
