Verizon

"Initially, we were only trying to reduce I/O bottlenecks with the Solid Data system, but now we realize that overall performance gains have been achieved."

Bob Stepanski,
Sybase Database Administrator
Verizon

Overview
Verizon needed to improve the performance of a construction management application (CMA). The most widely accessed subsystem within the company's automated records databases, CMA began to experience serious bottlenecks causing delays in the engineering work order and materials ordering processes. The subsequent delays in the placement, removal, and maintenance of outside plant equipment and structures lead to productivity losses, operating inefficiencies, and a loss of revenue due to the competitive nature of the recently deregulated telecommunications industry.

Bob Stepanski, the Sybase database administrator, was concerned because increasing demand for the system was escalating the performance problems. According to Stepanski, "As our database continued to grow in size, and as we added more users to the system, our performance levels started to be affected. We discovered that CPU levels were pegged at 100%. At first we thought we had a CPU bottleneck, so we added a CPU, but that only gave us 15% relief." After consulting with Sybase, Stepanski discovered that a daily transaction rate exceeding 900,000 on the tempdb files was creating the bottlenecks.

Installing a 900 Class Solid-State Disk enabled Stepanski to eliminate the I/O bottlenecks on tempdb and improve CMA performance by 30 to 100%. Sub-functions within the application also began to run faster-38% faster in one instance. In addition, the overall system performance gains gave him a cushion that would allow him to work on internal software problems during the day without impacting users.

"We are seeing an average performance improvement of 30% on our CMA application since we installed the Solid Data system. And we gain better than 100% performance improvement when we join large amounts of data, put the results in temporary tables, and rescan the table to do the next piece of work," Stepanski said.

Summary
Verizon needed to improve the performance of the company's construction management application (CMA). Increased I/O traffic on the widely used database caused bottlenecks on the tempdb files, resulting in delays in the engineering work order and materials ordering processes. This ultimately led to productivity losses, operating inefficiencies, and a loss of revenue. The Solid Data 900 Class Solid-State Disk system eliminated the I/O bottlenecks, improved CMA performance by 30 to 100%, enabled sub-functions to run faster, and enhanced overall system performance.

Verizon Case Study PDF: 17 KB (verizon.pdf)