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OverviewCountry or Region: FranceIndustry: High tech and electronics manufacturingCustomer ProfileFounded in 1990, and with more than 1,300 corporate customers, Cartesis is a world leader in finance and business performance management software. It has 600 employees and is based in Paris, France.Business SituationCartesis wanted to provide its customers with performance benchmark test results to prove the power and scalability of its Cartesis Finance software.SolutionCartesis worked with the Microsoft? Technology Center (MTC) in Paris, France, to test the capabilities of Cartesis Finance. The test results achieved by Cartesis exceeded the company’s expectations.BenefitsPractical, reality-based benchmark test resultsPerformance increase of 50 percentEvidence-backed marketing campaignIncreased customer confidence“The level of performance we [achieved] was the result of 12 months of ongoing effort and engagement. The MTC provided the infrastructure and the people necessary to meet and exceed our target.”Michel Morel, Chief Technology Officer, CartesisCartesis, an internationally recognized leader in finance and business performance management software, wanted to prove to its customers the power and scalability of its Cartesis Finance software. It worked with the Microsoft? Technology Center (MTC) in Paris, France, which provided the technology infrastructure and planning necessary to simulate an enterprise-scale real-life system usage scenario at a fraction of the cost and time it would have required otherwise. Cartesis achieved breakthrough performance benchmark test results and proved that its Microsoft technology–based application can support more than 1,500 concurrent users. These results were 50 percent higher than expected, due to the improvements Cartesis was able to make to its software based on information discovered during the testing. Cartesis used these results as evidence in a high-profile product marketing campaign.SituationCartesis, based in Paris, France, is a Microsoft? Gold Certified Partner. The company develops and markets finance and business performance management software to many of the world’s largest multinational corporations, such as Air France KLM, Cargill, Danone, Diageo, Nissan, Société Générale, and Standard Life. In fact, one in four of the Fortune Global 100 companies rely on Cartesis products. With a customer roster of this magnitude, Cartesis places a high emphasis on the development of software that can scale to support thousands of users. Its Cartesis Finance software helps companies complete financial consolidation and reporting cycles faster, and provides full process control and data transparency throughout. “Our customers’ businesses are growing, and consequently, so is the amount of data they are processing. The need for a fast close is more important than ever,” says James Fisher, Director of Product Marketing at Cartesis. The “fast close” concept refers to a company’s ability to complete its accounting cycles and close its books quickly. Achieving a fast close can be a challenge due to the increased complexity of global regulations and insufficient performance from many consolidation applications. Nonetheless, companies who can close their books quickly benefit from faster access to financial and business information that in turn makes possible faster reporting and better-informed decision making. Cartesis wanted to prove to its customers that Cartesis Finance can support a high number of users with speed and accuracy, functionality essential to help companies achieve a fast close. But to conduct performance benchmark testing of its software, Cartesis needed to simulate the use of its product in a true-to-life enterprise operating environment, one that resembled a potential Cartesis enterprise customer with thousands of users. To do this in-house the company would have had to make a significant investment in computer hardware, software, and IT planning. “We don’t have those kinds of resources,” says Michel Morel, Chief Technology Officer at Cartesis. “The time and costs required to build this infrastructure in-house was prohibitive. The planning alone, just to acquire the hardware, would have taken months. We could have easily spent several million dollars on this kind of infrastructure.”Cartesis also wanted to support a major marketing campaign with these test results. “We needed a proof point behind the campaign—one that demonstrated the value that Cartesis can deliver to its customers,” says Fisher.SolutionTo accomplish the testing that would simulate the use of Cartesis Finance in an enterprise setting, the company worked with the Microsoft Technology Center (MTC) in Paris, France. “It was much more than a matter of getting the highest number of concurrent users out of the product. We worked together to make the tests reflect real-life usage situations so that we would emerge from the testing with real, usable, practical data,” says Fisher.The goal of the testing was to demonstrate that Cartesis Finance can support 1,000 concurrent users at a high level of performance. Cartesis developers prepared for the MTC engagement by developing a test script to use for benchmarking the application’s performance. During the initial engagement with the MTC, which lasted two weeks in November 2005, Cartesis and the team from the MTC simulated usage scenarios and user profiles that reflected a true enterprise environment. The team conducted the equivalent of six months of “Our customers are looking for a business performance management application that can perform under stress…. This is an increasingly important buying criterion, and the MTC helped us satisfy this.”James Fisher, Director of Product Marketing, Cartesisactual financial reporting cycles. These tests involved more than 14,000 data submissions and 160,000 input schedules. The tests were conducted on Microsoft SQL Server? 2005 database software and with HP Integrity server computers. Cartesis Finance takes advantage of SQL Server 2005 to consolidate financial data. To simulate an enterprise-level load of users, the team used QALoad software from Compuware. QALoad mimics realistic business usage to validate system and application performance.After the initial engagement, Cartesis developers fine-tuned the Cartesis Finance application based on the results from the first round of testing. The company then returned two more times to the MTC in a 12-month period. After each visit, the developers again used the test results to inform further modifications to the application, each time improving its performance—until the application surpassed the original goal of 1,000 concurrent users.BenefitsAs a result of its engagement with the MTC, Cartesis has a well-documented set of benchmark performance and scalability test results that it can use to support a high-profile marketing campaign. These test results, evidence of the company’s dedication to helping other companies improve business performance management, has greatly increased customer confidence in Cartesis products. Practical, Reality-Based Benchmark Test ResultsThe series of demanding performance benchmarks, based on Compuware tools, which Cartesis completed at the MTC resulted in the following proof points for Cartesis Finance. The application can: Support 1,500 active concurrent users while performing consolidation functions with high performance. Support 12 simultaneous consolidations running with up to 500 active users in one application. Achieve average response times, on 100 user actions, of fewer than 3 seconds.Scale to accommodate new users while maintaining high performance levels.“We accomplished a series of focused benchmark tests, really pushing the capabilities of Cartesis Finance to its limits. Our customers are looking for a business performance management application that can perform under stress and scale as necessary. This is an increasingly important buying criterion, and the MTC helped us satisfy this,” says Fisher. Performance Increase of 50 PercentFrom the time of its first visit to the MTC, Cartesis improved the performance of its software by 50 percent. Although the goal was to prove that Cartesis Finance can support 1,000 simultaneous users, with the help of the MTC, Cartesis tested the performance of the application up to 1,500 concurrent users. “The level of performance we were able to achieve, 1,500 concurrent users, was the result of 12 months of ongoing effort and engagement. The MTC provided the infrastructure and the people necessary to meet and exceed our target. The result of supporting 1,500 concurrent users on a hardware platform that was sized to support 1,000 concurrent users was well above our expectations,” says Morel. The test results also helped to demonstrate to Cartesis customers the scalability of SQL Server 2005 and the HP Integrity platform. “We’re now seeing very large deployments on SQL Server 2005,” says Morel. “These tests provide additional proof of the suitability of SQL Server 2005 for the largest enterprise deployments.”“These test results are dramatically increasing the confidence of both prospective and current customers.”Michel Morel, Chief Technology Officer, CartesisEvidence-Backed Marketing CampaignThe benchmark test results from the Cartesis engagement with the MTC are used to support the company’s Fast Close marketing campaign. The test results now appear in a series of white papers written by Cartesis that discuss how businesses can speed business performance management and close their books faster. The white papers contain practical advice for selecting business performance management applications, including a framework that outlines the types of performance benchmarks to look for. Morel says the company can now provide “tangible evidence” for current and potential Cartesis customers in their evaluation of Cartesis products. Increased Customer Confidence“These test results are dramatically increasing the confidence of both prospective and current customers,” says Morel. In reference to the results the company has seen from its Fast Close campaign, an integral part of which are these performance benchmarks test results, Fisher says, “Because we’ve been able to underpin the Fast Close campaign with a solid set of proof points and capabilities, this campaign has been one of the most significant and successful campaigns we’ve undertaken in the last 12 months. It’s raised a great deal of awareness for Cartesis and moved the discussion of business performance management forward.”Software and ServicesProductsMicrosoft SQL Server 2005ServicesMicrosoft Technology Centers (MTC)HardwareHP Integrity server computers:- Interface: HP BladeSystem BL 460c- Database: HP Integrity RX6600- SAN storage array: HP StorageWorks EVA8000This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published July 2007For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: For more information about HP products and services, visit the Web site at: For more information about Compuware products and services, visit the Web site at: For more information about Cartesis products and services, call (203) 956-2800 or visit the Web site at: Microsoft Technology CentersMicrosoft Technology Centers (MTC) provide everything you need—technology experts, industry leaders, and an outstanding environment—to envision, plan, and architect a complete, customized solution.For more information about Microsoft Technology Centers, go to: mtc ................
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