Lawson S3 Enterprise Management System with Microsoft SQL Server 20081

Lawson S3 Enterprise Management System with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 reaches new heights in scalability and performance

White Paper

Published: April 2010

Applies to: SQL Server 2008

Introduction

This white paper describes how Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 provides an optimal, enterprise-ready, highly scalable data platform for theLawson S3 Enterprise Management System, as demonstrated in a recent large-scale benchmark study performed jointly by Microsoft and Analysts International Corporation (AIC) in collaboration with Lawson Software. This paper also describes how running the Lawson S3 Enterprise Management System on the Microsoft Windows® platform with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 enables businesses to process hundreds of thousands of records while simultaneously reducing operations costs, thus lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO).

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Microsoft Corporation ©2010

Lawson S3 Enterprise Management System with Microsoft SQL Server 20081

Copyright

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Microsoft Corporation ©2010

Lawson S3 Enterprise Management System with Microsoft SQL Server 20081

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

Lawson Software, AIC and Microsoft...... 2

Enterprise Resource Planning Software...... 2

Lawson S3 Enterprise Resource Management System

Benchmark Study: Lawson S3 Enterprise Resource Management System and SQL Server 2008

SQL Server 2008 Features and Benefits

Conclusion

Microsoft Corporation ©2010

Lawson S3 Enterprise Management System with Microsoft SQL Server 20081

Executive Summary

In a turbulent economy, enterprises are challenged to find the best means ofenabling business process innovation while lowering operations costs. Companies with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software are looking to boost the value of their application, while businesses that have yet to invest in an ERP solution find that it is more important than ever that they make the right choice.

For these reasons, Microsoft and AIChave formed an alliance to assist companies in finding and testing a cost-effective ERP solution that will help them handle extremely large workloads, boost productivity and contain costs. This collaborative effort includes integration and scalability testing via benchmark studies.

The Microsoft-Lawson Benchmark Study

In March 2010, Microsoft and AIC conducted a benchmark study to determine if the latest version of the Lawson S3 Enterprise Management System running on Microsoft Windows 2008 with the SQL Server 2008 database could perform a large-scale batch process within a reasonable window of time.

The results prove thatthe 9.0 Lawson S3 environment and Enterprise Management System, when run on Microsoft Windows 2008 with Microsoft SQL Server 2008,offers exceptional performance for everyday financial tasks such as General Ledger and Accounts Payable processing. Because SQL Server 2008 processes data quickly and can eliminate potential hardware bottlenecks, it allows the enterprises that deploy it in conjunction with the Lawson S3 Enterprise Management System to achieve maximum efficiency while reducing their total cost of ownership.

The resultsunderscore the dramatic savings in time and money that can be obtained by using Microsoft Application Platform technologies.[1] SQL Server 2008 provides an enterprise-ready, highly scalable data platform that is reliable, secure, manageable, economical and wellintegrated with theLawson S3 Enterprise Management System. Itsupports the most demanding ERPworkloadsby delivering advanced features and capabilities, including:

  • Ease of use and self-tuning features
  • Advanced database features
  • High levels of performance, scalability and security
  • Optimal, native integration with the Windows platform
  • Excellent value and a lower TCO
Lawson Software, AIC and Microsoft

Lawson Software provides software and service solutions to 4,500 customers in manufacturing, distribution, maintenance, healthcare and service sector industries across 40 countries. Lawson solutions assist customers in simplifying their businesses or organizations by helping them to streamline processes, reduce costs and enhance business or operational performance.

Analysts International Corporation (AIC) is an information technology consulting company that provides businesses with second-to-none IT service, helping them to develop, service and support ERP software technology. AIC isa Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and a Lawson Certified Partner, and has had a longstanding partnership with both organizations.

Microsoft Corporation is committed to ensuring that Microsofttechnologies such asMicrosoft SQL Server 2008 are well integrated with Lawson products. As a result, Lawson Software, AIC and Microsoft are uniquely positioned to provide increased business value to companies that use the Lawson S3 Enterprise Management System on the Microsoft platform.

Enterprise Resource Planning Software

Enterprise Resource Planning software integrates all departments and functions across a company onto a unified computer system that serves each department's particular needs. Such integration helps companies to build their key business processes, boost communication within the enterprise and beyond, make smarter and faster decisions and capitalize on their assets and resources. With ERP software, organizations can:

  • Consolidate all business operations into a uniform and enterprise-wide environment.
  • Eliminate information silos and contradictory data, and facilitate the flow of accurate, up-to-date information between all business functions —inside the organization and out.
  • Streamline operations to improve customer satisfaction and reduce the cost of doing business.
  • Generate complete, current financial information and reports for business planning and regulatory compliance.
  • Simplify and automate routine and repetitive functions so that employees can focus on more critical tasks.
  • Accomplish project goals and achieve outstanding results within budget, on time and with excellent resource efficiency.
  • Look deeper into key performance factors. Pinpoint themost profitable customers and the most efficient vendors, and also identify issues within the organization that require swift action.
Lawson S3 Enterprise Management System

The Lawson S3 Enterprise Management System is built on the open-standard platform Lawson System Foundation 9 and is designed to help organizations staff, source and serve, whether their business is financial management, business intelligence, human resource management, healthcare, retail, education or government. The 9.0 release marks the third major release of the software since Lawson ported to the Microsoft Windows platform. This most recent release focuses heavily on the technology layer to improve overall performance, allowing companies of all sizes to:

  • Profit from a flexible platform that supports open standards and lowers TCO.
  • Deploy built-in customization capabilities to addressspecific operational needs.
  • Manage the supply chain and financial enterprise, streamline operations and improve their bottom line.
  • Collect, manage and retain information efficiently.
  • Meet business and government guidelines for information administration.
  • Derive maximum value from data assets.
  • Manage records and accelerate transactional business processes.
  • Automate routine administrative functions to free employees to contribute more strategically.
  • Capitalize onWeb 2.0 technologies for true enterprise performance and scalability.
Benchmark Study: Lawson S3 Enterprise Management Systemand SQL Server 2008

In March 2010, Microsoft andAICconducted a benchmark study to determine if the latest version of Lawson S3 Enterprise Management System software running on the latest version of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 could perform a large-scale batch process within a reasonable window of time.

The study was performed through the Microsoft Enterprise Engineering Center (EEC), a data center and lab facility located in Redmond, Washington, U.S.A. The EECprovides partners with the tools, hardware and technical expertise needed to test Microsoft product deployments in real-world,enterprise production environments under controlled conditions,often using recently released software. The experience the EEC and partners gain through these efforts helps to improve Microsoft and partner products and increase customer satisfaction.

Methodology

A batch-processing test was selected over a simulation test of users accessing data through online forms becauseit was determined that batch processing would provide a better trial of the ability of SQL Server 2008 to handle heavy disk I/O.

To further simulate a real-world scenario, a basic configuration was used in selecting hardware. (It should be noted that the hardware configuration used in this test should not be considered an example of optimal configuration for an organization to run their Lawson ERP system. A proper hardware sizing exercise that takes into account all factors of an organization should be conducted before deploying Lawson applications.)

The study tested two common high-volume processes that most large-scale organizations require their ERP systems to manage on a regular basis: General Ledger (GL) and Accounts Payable (AP) batch cycles. Lawson Software's benchmarking and data scaling toolswere used to simulate large-scale batch processing for both of these systems.

The numbers of transactions processed reflected the numbers of transactions that are typically processed by small, medium and large businesses. Figures 1 and 2 outlinethe most commonmetrics for GL and AP interactions:

Figure 1. General Ledger (GL) transactions

Base Size / Transaction Volume Size
Medium / 48,000
Large / 256,000

Figure 2. Accounts Payable (AP) transactions

Base Size / Transaction Volume Size / Groupings
Medium / 10,000 / 1
Large / 120,000 / 4

Server Configuration

The benchmark test was conducted in a two-server configuration that is common for many Lawson ERP implementations. The first server was for the Lawson application, while the second server contained the Microsoft SQL Server database. Both servers were connected to an EMC SAN through a fiber card, and the servers were connected directly to each other via a gigabit connection. Both the Lawson application and the database were created on SAN storage.

Figure 3. Server and storage configuration

Lawson Application ServerLawson Application ServerEMC Clariion CX4-120

Server #1:
Lawson Application Server / Server #2:
SQL Server 2008 / Storage:
EMC Clariion CX4-120
HP DL360 G5
2 x Quad Core Processors
8 GB RAM
2 x 1 GB Network Interface Cards
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 SP2 64-bit OS
Lawson System Foundation 9.0.1.5 64-bit
Lawson Business Applications 9.0.1.5 64-bit / HP DL360 G5
2 x Quad Core Processors
10 GB RAM
2 x 1 GB Network Interface Cards
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit OS
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 64-bit / 2 x 4 GB Fiber Channel optical ports
2 x Storage Processors
3 GB of memory per Storage Processor
4 GB/sec FC drives
Lawson Applications 6 x 4 GB/sec FC drives in RAID 1+0
SQL Server 2008 database
6 x 4 GB/sec FC drives in RAID 1+0

Data Sets

AIC populated two data sets, one for General Ledger applications and one for Accounts Payable. The two data sets were combined to create a single database to put significant load on SQL Server 2008 to generate valid statistics.

  • General Ledger test. 256,064 General Ledger transactionswere posted through the Lawson GL Posting process.
  • GL165 - General Ledger transaction import
  • GL190 - Journal Posting
  • Accounts Payable test. 120,000 AP invoices and 480,000 APdistribution recordswere processed through the Lawson AP invoice posting process togenerate 120,000 AP checks and 720,000 GL transactions.
  • AP520 - Invoice Interface Processing
  • AP125 - Mass Invoice Release
  • AP150 - Cash Requirements
  • AP155 - Payment Forms Creation
  • AP175 - Invoice Distribution Closing
  • GL190 - Journal Posting

The GL and AP posting jobs were run through the system in a single, threaded manner. The results were then collected.

Test Results Analysis

The comparative run times (number of seconds) of each of the Lawson batch job tests are shown in Figure 4 (below). On average, the AP tests ran longer than the GL tests because the business logic of the AP programs is more complex than that of the GL programs. Many businesses process such large-batch AP jobs overnight in order to accommodate long runtimes of six to eight hours. In this study, however, the overall AP batch process took less than three hours, which is exceptional given the large number of transactions.

Figure 4. Test run times per second

In testing, SQL Server 2008 proved to be very efficient in caching financial data used by the Lawson application, as illustrated in Figures 5 and 6. For this test, the goal wasto have disk idle time above 80 percent and a buffer cache hit ratio above 90 percent. The data was loaded by the AP520 program, which saw the lowest disk idle and cache hit ratio, but even these figures surpassed the goal. Subsequent jobs had even higher buffer cache hit ratios that approached 100 percent, and disk idle time exceeded 94 percent.

Figure 5. SQL Server disk idle time

Figure 6. SQL Server buffer cache hit ratio

Because much of the business logic resides on the Lawson Application Server, SQL Server 2008 CPU idle time was high, as demonstrated in Figure 7. The desired goal for the SQL database server was a CPU idle time above 85 percent. As the chart shows, all of the Lawson batch jobs reached this goal.

Figure 7. SQL Server CPU idle time

When required, SQL Server 2008 delivered a high number of peak transactions per second, as seen in Figure 8. The goal was to have a number in excess of 60 SQL Server transactions per second. The only batch jobsthat did not achieve this goal were AP155 and the two GL jobs, but this was attributed to theirneed to process financial data one record at a time, as is required by the program business logic.

Figure 8. SQL Server peak transactions per second

Test Conclusion

SQL Server 2008[2]provides high performance, scalability, reliability and security forthe 9.0 Lawson S3 Enterprise Management System. Lawson applications running on the Microsoft platform deliver exceptional performance for everyday financial tasks, such as AP and GL processing. SQL Server 2008 processes data very efficiently, and can also eliminate hardware bottlenecks by applying capable caching algorithm.

SQL Server 2008 Features and Benefits

SQL Server 2008 delivers enhanced performance compared to competitor platforms; it scales to some of the world’s largest workloads, as evidenced by strong industry standard benchmark results.[3] Enterprises that deploy SQL Server 2008 benefit from easy-to-use, self-tuning features that simplify data management; advanced database features that optimize performance; and high-availability features that improve availability and reliability.

Self-Tuning Features

The self-tuning features ofSQL Server 2008 simplify the management of SQL Server instances across the enterprise, dramatically reducing administration efforts. By separating the installation of the hardware from the installation, setup and configuration of the SQL Server software, customers can enable specific installation configurations for the Lawson S3 Enterprise Management System that makethe software easier to deploy and manage. The easy-to-use, self-tuning features include:

  • Management data warehouse. This centralized repository simplifies the management of performance data uploaded through the data collector, including disk usage, query statistics and server activity data.
  • Dynamic Management Views (DMVs). DMVs expose additional information about SQL Server internals, including database-mirroring sessions.
  • Policy-based management. Monitors system activity and enforces policy compliance across the enterprise, which might include hundreds of servers. For example, Lawson S3 Enterprise Management System customers can use SQL Server 2008 policy-based management to develop best practices or configuration guidelines for specificLawson S3 products to assist in managing their deployment.

Advanced Database Features

SQL Server 2008 advanced database features can enable enterprises that use Lawson S3 software to achieve better performance and a lower TCOthrough: