Independent Benchmark Verifies Scalability of Market Leading Data Management Solution
Liberty Lake, Wash. — May 30, 2008 — Itron Inc. (NASDAQ: ITRI) announced today another successful round of scalability and performance benchmark testing for its Itron Enterprise Edition™ (IEE) Meter Data Management (MDM) product.
Itron, Microsoft® and Infosys® worked together to execute the latest high-volume benchmark on SQL Server® 2005 and SQL Server 2008, culminating in independent verification of the product’s scalability. The test comprised 4.5 million meters with half-hourly data, a volume equivalent to hourly data for 9 million meters. Over 200 million intervals of data were imported in each test. The goal was to ensure IEE MDM performance not only meets the current needs of large utility companies, but can also scale as Itron customers deploy increasingly sophisticated large-scale advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) solutions.
Said Julie Hance, vice president of software services at Itron, “In all cases Microsoft, Infosys and Itron were able to verify that Itron’s MDM solution does, in fact, meet and exceed all the required performance and scalability demands for data import necessary to satisfy large-scale installations upward of 9 million residential AMI hourly interval meters. Working together, Itron and Microsoft were able to establish that its architecture will flexibly scale to meet the future, growing needs of customers.”
The outcome of the benchmark tests demonstrated that IEE on SQL Server 2005 needs less than two hours to validate, auto-estimate, and import 4.5 million half-hourly meters each having one register and one interval channel. The test encompassed a total of 3.02 billion intervals per day, which equals 35,000 intervals per second including calculating estimations for 0.5 percent of the meters. While the majority of tests were run on SQL Server 2005, the database was migrated and the tests rerun on SQL Server 2008. Overall validation/estimation/import results improved by approximately 10 percent on SQL Server 2008 compared to SQL Server 2005.
“Working with Itron and Infosys, we’ve shown that the mission-critical IEE MDM application is uniquely positioned to work on the Microsoft platform with the SQL Server database solution, offering utilities scale, performance and a lower total cost of ownership,” said Larry Kuhl, worldwide utilities business development and alliance manager at Microsoft.
“We are pleased to have had the opportunity to work with Itron and Microsoft on this important test,” said Ankush Patel, vice president of Infosys' utilities practice. “These results will play a key role in the continuing success of our IEE MDM training taking place in our Worldwide AMI Center of Excellence in India.”
The benchmarks were conducted at Microsoft’s lab in Redmond, Wash., and were completed entirely on HP hardware. Itron introduced IEE MDM in 2003 and has since completed benchmarks of comparable size on other database systems. IEE MDM is the industry’s leading multi-vendor platform solution for maximizing the value of utility metering and AMI data. It’s currently in use at 40 utilities around the world, representing more than 23 million contracted meters.
About Itron
Itron Inc. is a leading technology provider to the global energy and water industries. Itron Inc. consists of Itron in North America and Actaris outside of North America. Our company is the world’s leading provider of metering, data collection and utility software solutions, with nearly 8,000 utilities worldwide relying on our technology to optimize the delivery and use of energy and water. Our products include electricity, gas and water meters, data collection and communication systems, including automated meter reading (AMR) and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI); meter data management and related software applications; as well as project management, installation, and consulting services. To know more, start here: www.itron.com.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. www.microsoft.com
About Infosys
Infosys (NASDAQ: INFY) defines, designs and delivers IT-enabled business solutions that help Global 2000 companies win in a Flat World. These solutions focus on providing strategic differentiation and operational superiority to clients. With Infosys, clients are assured of a transparent business partner, world-class processes, speed of execution and the power to stretch their IT budget by leveraging the Global Delivery Model that Infosys pioneered. Infosys has over 80,000 employees in over 44 offices worldwide. For more information: www.infosys.com.
For additional information contact
Kim Papich
Itron Communications and Marketing
(509) 891-3590
kim.papich@itron.com
