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At Xense we believe that
the only way to deliver scalable and high-performance systems
is to actively design the system that way. Many systems today
are built by developers using high-level languages and frameworks
which insulate them from the detail and complexity of the underlying
hardware and software. Whilst these extra layers allow rapid
software development and ease the creation of sophisticated
user interfaces, the popularity of Documentum Foundation Classes
(DFC), Business Object Framework (BOF) and Web Development Kit
(WDK) has meant there is now a growing generation of Documentum
developers with little or no knowledge of the core DMCL API
actually used to interact directly with Documentum Content Server.
By way of example, a typical large scale web-based Documentum
application will now span 4 or 5 hardware tiers (Client Web
Browser, Web/Application Server, Content Server, Database Server
and storage) and a single user action is processed
across 5 distinct software layers (HTTP, WDK, DFC, DMCL and
SQL). It is hardly surprising that system development using
these high-level interfaces without regard to the underlying
low-level calls to Content Server and database
Designing a system that delivers
predictable response times to hundreds or thousands of users
is not an easy task. However the complexity can be managed by
incorporating certain principles into the design process. Collectively
these techniques are called ‘Performance by Design’.
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