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4.
Scalability and throughput.
Q: how does SyncSmart perform in
regards to scalability and throughput?
A: SyncSmart is non-invasive and
does not impact applications; therefore developers can build and
scale application functionality and application users to match
the performance of the dbms and platform that they so choose.
Because SyncSmart queries directly against the database using
ODBC, it often has the same performance impacts on the database
as a robust user might have. In theory, this allows for
unlimited scalability for application users and makes overall
performance a function of the robustness of the database and not
of any one application. Currently, Data Safety Corporation's
largest customer has 4,500 users that synchronize at random
throughout the day. In addition, SyncSmart does not use
transaction log files, which can build up and consume drive
space when users do not synchronize for an extended period of
time.
SyncSmart provides users the capability to perform ad hoc
synchronizations throughout the day. This ad hoc functionality
provides users with the flexibility to have their client
database as up-to-date as they would like it to be. This
flexibility benefit is provided as a byproduct of one of
SyncSmart's core design concepts and is one of the key features
of SyncSmart. SyncSmart leverages the inherent power of the
application's dbms by using standard SQL queries of indexed data
to extract and import changed records. By employing this
methodology in its change processing, SyncSmart offers the
maximum throughput possible for performing synchronization.
In regards to measuring throughput, while client side processing
of SQL/DITM messages is important, throughput is measured at the
server during peak synchronization times when the majority of
application users initiate or pull synchronization (i.e.,
several hundred users synchronizing first thing in the morning).
As noted previously, SyncSmart exports changes to a database by
doing a query. Since the record versioning fields are indexed,
these exports occur very quickly at dbms speeds. Importing SQL/DITM
messages has more of an impact on throughput. SyncSmart has to
process inserts, updates, deletes and collisions, as do all
synchronization products. However, these messages can be queued
for greater synchronization performance. In other words, the
server can export changes for a user first and then process the
users' imports off line after disconnecting.
A couple of other techniques can be used to further increase
import performance. For one, SyncSmart can be configured to
process multiple synchronizations on the server at once,
essentially running imports in parallel. And secondly, SyncSmart
can be configured to create multiple synchronization or SQL/DITM
messages for each client database. Developers can then assign
high and lower priorities to the data they want to synchronize
