How to Boost IIS performance

IIS, the web server, is a part for SPF site setup. While many stuffs work for SPF with IIS as a web server, it is important to know about the facts that how the performance of IIS can be pumped up. The better IIS performs, better SPF performs.

• Object Cache TTL
• For a dynamic site (in case of website), it is recommended that object shouldn't be cached. In case of SPF, where most important function of Plant Lifecycle, the integration occurs, it should be recommended that the cache is set to minimum possible. By default it is set to 15 minutes. It depends on the criticality of the project, or integration frequency how fast the cache should be refreshed.
• Enable HTTP to Keep Alive
• Improves client connection experience. Allows Integration authentication, recommended to keep it enabled.
• HTTP Compression
• An important feature recommended by IIS gurus. There is a built in feature to perform this task.
• Connection Timeout
• This depends totally on projects requirement, sometimes on a particular action. May be helpful while troubleshooting.
• Optimize Memory Usage
• IIS utilizes a lot of physical memory. More the memory alotted, better will be the IIS performance.

Hope you find this of some use. Till next post

Happy Smartplanting...

Too Many Defs

Hi,

Before I wrote my last post, I came across few def words (ClassDef, InterfaceDef, RelDef, PropertyDef etc.). SPF schema definitions have very clear architecture of Object Oriented Modelling. It makes sense, as the more I learn, the more I get clearer picture. Let’s talk about some classic data modelling terms here.

Classes

Orthodox definition for class is a group of objects. The objects in classes have similar properties or attributes, common behaviour or operations, common relationships to other objects and common semantics. For instance, the posts in* my blog can be a class, and this particular post can be considered as objects. Smartplant being a class, SPF will become an object.

Interface

Interface talks about roles. What I can do? What am I destined to do? What is my designated work? Interface, in terms of SPF, defines the role of an object. Let’s say, role of SPF is to integrate data among tools and manage documents. Interface is important to define the designated responsibility.

Property

Property talks about the figure. It describes an object with all of its description. Each property has a value for each object instance. For example, SPF has site name, plant name, PBS, version, etc. These attributes may be defining different aspects of an instance. To have a selective set of property, we should have a rigid (well defined to be specific) role of object in Instance.

Property Scope

Property should be scoped. While coding a program, if a variable has scope (or data type) string, and the Database has value DBNull, it would be inappropriate to return the value to variable. It will always cast an error. For example, if you tell some girl’s age as 250, either the girl will commit suicide or will kill you. You should say 250 months (better be specific in SPF, not in real life ;-) ).

This was just an introduction for succeeding posts. This will be helpful in future...

Happy Smartplanting...

* Added as per comment made in a Linkedin Discussion. Thanks to 'Mariusz Lubkowski'.

Smartplant Data Model

Hi Again,

In the last post, I discussed a little about data modeling and tried to co-relate it to Smartplant. But after reading it several times, I myself found it disgusting. It never cleared any point. Here, I'm trying to make it more clear.

Smartplant Schema

As we all know, Smartplant tools talk to each other via adapters. Of course, SPF acts as an interpreter. But for SPF to understand the tools, it itself needs a medium. To interpret the data of each tool, there are several schemas that are stored in xml files. There several dlls that parse these xml files for SPF. The tool adapter interfaces with schema component to read the Smartplant schema.

Smartplant Schema Rules

Smartplant Suite deals with heterogeneous data.  In order to control the data transfer in disciplined way, following rules are applied.

• ·         Smartplant Schema consists of all schema data, and describes everything that goes to SPF.
• ·         The Server contains a copy of Smartplant Schema, which actually is an xml file.
• ·         Clients contain the selective extracts of Smartplant Schema, known as Component Schema.
• ·         The changes to be done are first done in Smartplant Schema and then propagated to Component Schema.

Overview of Smartplant schema Data Model

The Smartplant Data Model consists of three main components. These are represented using UML (will discuss about it some time).

Component	Representation	Defined by
Classes	Represents real world objects	ClassDefs
Interfaces	Used to tightly bind roles	InterfaceDefs
Relationships	Represents the association between two objects	RelDefs

Hope this was more clear for understanding modeling.

Happy Smartplanting...

The need to Model

Hi,

Modeling data in SPF is a common topic. It comes up with the word modeling and mapping. To perform mapping exactly, we should have a clear overview on modeling. I've gone through books (or guides) which gives examples of model of car. But why do we need model has been real quest for me so far.

Why we model?

Different tools of smartplant have different approach to data, as they were developed independently. Yet data needs to be shared among them as we do not want to deal the same data again for different tool. So to make the tools understand that SPPID and SP3D (for instance) are pointing to same valve, we need to model data.

How model?

In terms of Integration, model of valve is not a valve, but it represents different properties of valves. There can be hundreds of attributes of a valve. Each smartplant tool deals with particular set of attributes, but they appear to define the same valve in different way. So to make them understand that they are dealing the same entity, SPF understands the valve as a model. It takes the properties of valve from all tools, and integrates them to represent a single valve.

Based on this model, SPF schema is prepared. This is then used for mapping stuff. This is the base of smartplant integration.