The pensions dashboard has been successfully scale tested to accommodate 15 million active consumers by the project’s fintech partner Origo.

According to Origo, the dashboard was successfully trialled for the anticipated usage of 15 million active consumers finding their pensions via the platform.

Origo sought to analyse the performance and stability of the ‘find’ function at high volume, and has led to calls to all providers who check if they have a matching policy for the consumer.

The target was based upon research from Origo earlier this year that found the upcoming pensions dashboard could be used by up to 15 million consumers. As a result of the potential high demand, Origo advised that the infrastructure underpinning the platform must be crafted to “support significant volumes of consumers from day one”, scaled to target 15 million consumers.

The scalability test bench-marked against test scenarios and factors including: 15 million users, 80 per cent of these as active on the pensions dashboard(s) on a given day, invoking an additional ‘find’ request every 30 days and 200 pension provider systems (or ‘end points’) in the ecosystem, Origo explained.

Origo chief architect Kenneth May said: “Averaged out over a day, this requires a throughput of just over 1,000 transactions per second to deal with incoming traffic from the dashboard(s) and to collate responses from pension providers.

“We have tested at more than double this rate to ensure that we can cope with typical usage patterns which have significant peaks during the working day. Our test results give us confidence that we can reliably achieve, exceed and sustain the required throughput and provide a robust low-latency service.”

Origo managing director Anthony Rafferty added: “We are delighted with the progress
we’re making on behalf of consumers. Our recent testing has proven that the solution scales.”

However, he noted that one of the key concerns for the delivery of the platform is the “sheer complexity in scaling up the central IT infrastructure” in order to deal with demand. “It is vital that this is achieved securely, efficiently and at acceptable cost to government and industry stakeholders,” Rafferty said.

“Working in collaboration with providers and industry bodies over the years, as well as the support from our strategic technology partners – MuleSoft and ForgeRock – has enabled us to deliver and successfully test the plumbing of the pensions dashboard. For us, the technology is ready for 15 million consumers.”

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