Various measurement factors to be considered for developing Enterprise Applications

Response


Response time is the amount of time it takes for the system to process a request from the outside. This may be a UI action, such as pressing a button, or a server API call.

Responsiveness

Responsiveness is about how quickly the system acknowledges a request as opposed to processing it. This is important in many systems because users may become frustrated if a system has low responsiveness, even if its response time is good. If your system waits during the whole request, then your responsiveness and response time are the same. However, if you indicate that you've received the request before you complete, then your responsiveness is better. Providing a progress bar during a file copy improves the responsiveness of your user interface, even though it doesn't improve response time

Latency

Latency is the minimum time required to get any form of response, even if the work to be done is nonexistent. It's usually the big issue in remote systems. If I ask a program to do nothing, but to tell me when it's done doing nothing, then I should get an almost instantaneous response if the program runs on my laptop. However, if the program runs on a remote computer, I may get a few seconds just because of the time taken for the request and response to make their way across the wire. As an application developer, I can usually do nothing to improve latency. Latency is also the reason why you should minimize remote calls.

Throughput

Throughput is how much stuff you can do in a given amount of time. If you're timing the copying of a file, throughput might be measured in bytes per second. For enterprise applications a typical measure is transactions per second (tps), but the problem is that this depends on the complexity of your transaction. For your particular system you should pick a common set of transactions.

Performance

Performance is either throughput or response time—whichever matters more to you. It can sometimes be difficult to talk about performance when a technique improves throughput but decreases response time, so it's best to use the more precise term. From a user's perspective responsiveness may be more important than response time, so improving responsiveness at a cost of response time or throughput will increase performance.

Load

Load is a statement of how much stress a system is under, which might be measured in how many users are currently connected to it. The load is usually a context for some other measurement, such as a response time. Thus, you may say that the response time for some request is 0.5 seconds with 10 users and 2 seconds with 20 users.

Load sensitivity

Load sensitivity is an expression of how the response time varies with the load. Let's say that system A has a response time of 0.5 seconds for 10 through 20 users and system B has a response time of 0.2 seconds for 10 users that rises to 2 seconds for 20 users. In this case system A has lower load sensitivity than system B. We might also use the term degradation to say that system B degrades more than system A.

Efficiency is performance divided by resources. A system that gets 30 tps on two CPUs is more efficient than a system that gets 40 tps on four identical CPUs.

Capacity

The capacity of a system is an indication of maximum effective throughput or load. This might be an absolute maximum or a point at which the performance dips below an acceptable threshold.

Scalability

Scalability is a measure of how adding resources (usually hardware) affects performance. A scalable system is one that allows you to add hardware and get a commensurate performance improvement; such as doubling how many servers you have to double your throughput. Vertical scalability, or scaling up, means adding more power to a single server, such as more memory. Horizontal scalability, or scaling out, means adding more servers.

Enterprise Content Management Solution (ECM) Providers

At present there are various vendors who provide Content Management solutions to their clients.

Here is a list :

IBM
IBM Content Management

Vignette (Open Text)
http://www.vignette.com/us/Solutions/Web-Content-Management

Documentum

http://www.emc.com/domains/documentum/index.htm

HummingBird

Newgen
http://www.newgensoft.com/in/en/enterprise_content_management

LiveLink
http://www.opentext.com/2/sol-products/sol-pro-llecm10.htm

Microsoft Share Point
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/Pages/default.aspx

Alfresco Content Management
http://www.alfresco.com/


There are many more which can be added into list but these are the ones which I have heard about the most.

WPF 4 - New/Enhanced features

WPF Tracing Support
http://10rem.net/blog/2010/04/12/wpf-4-release-a-guide-to-the-new-features

ClearType
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/cleartype/

Custom Dictionaries APIs
WPF Text Team Blog post on Custom Dictionaries in WPF 4

Pixel Shader 3 Support
Create Custom Pixel Shader Effects for
WPF http://windowsclient.net/learn/video.aspx?v=296117

Removal of legacy Bitmap Effects
The old legacy bitmap effects (bevel, drop shadow, blur etc.) are still present, but there's zero implementation. The effects that have shader versions (blur, drop shadow) get forwarded to the shader implementation. The other effects (bevel, for example) simply do nothing. Your code will compile, but the effects themselves are no-ops. In .NET 3.5sp1, they were marked as deprecated, so this is not surprising.
Bitmap effects are software-only, and couldn't be hardware accelerated. One of the biggest performance issues with old WPF applications was use/overuse of bitmap effects. Pixel shader-based effects are much more performant. I'm glad to see we aren't afraid to cull when we come up with something better.
The replacement effects are just as easy to use as the old effects, and will even render on the design surface.
http://10rem.net/blog/2010/04/12/wpf-4-release-a-guide-to-the-new-features

FileNet Image Manager Active Edition

It’s a solution that combines IBM FileNet Image Services, which is being used by thousands of organizations to transform their document image management, and IBM FileNet Content Manager. This combination provides you with the option to extend the management of massive volumes of document images with business process management (IBM
FileNet BPM), eForms management (IBM FileNet Forms Manager), email management (IBM FileNet Email Manager) and more.

Image Manager Active Edition allows you to link content with business processes, activating that content so that it drives workflows within your organization. This level of integration activates your business, enabling you to work with content that makes a positive impact within seconds of a document image reaching your
system, rather than the weeks it can take with paper or other software solutions.

For more info visit http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/content-management/filenet-image-manager/

Microsoft Windows Presentation Framework (WPF)

The Windows Presentation Foundation, WPF, provides a unified framework for building applications and high-fidelity experiences in Windows Vista that blend application UI, documents, and media content. WPF offers developers 2D and 3D graphics support, hardware-accelerated effects, scalability to different form factors, interactive data visualization, and superior content readability.

Nice book on Microsoft WPF
Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed (WPF)

Microsoft Share Point

Share point is one of the Microsoft Web Server products. It is a web-based collaboration, document management, and process management product that allow us to build an enterprise portal. It aims at following:

a). To improve team productivity by allowing staff to collaborate efficiently.

b). To provide the staff with the information they need.

c). To provides us with the framework to create websites that not only provide access to documents and shared workspaces but also allow other web-based applications such as wikis and blogs to be created.

d). It also allows elaborate workflows to be created, allowing business processes to be monitored and actioned.

Share point refers to two products:

a). Windows SharePoint Services (WSS)

It is a free add-on for Windows server which provide following features:

1. Wiki
2. Workflows
3. Blog
4. Document management with version control
5. Team sites
6. RSS support etc.

b). Microsoft SharePoint Server

It is a product purchased separately from WSS and adds following features to the basic features discussed above:

1. Improved Document Management
2. Project Management
3. Enterprise Search

Share point is suited for medium-sized companies or large enterprises.

Lock, Save and Unlock Methods in Capture professional

The Lock, Unlock, and Save methods of a RepObject are used to make changes to the RepObject.To change a RepObject you must lock it, make the change, save it, and then unlock it. If you try to lock a RepObject already locked by another user, you will receive an error. The following code renames a RepObject:

Dim oBatch as RepObject
If oBatch.Lock then
oBatch.Name = “newname”
oBatch.Save
oBatch.Unlock
EndIf

The Lock, Save and Unlock methods each return a boolean value indicating success or failure. Locking a RepObject locks all the children of that RepObject. Saving a RepObject saves all of the children of that RepObject. Each call to the Lock method must eventually be matched with a call to the Unlock method by the same user before a RepObject is fully unlocked. The RepObject manages an internal lock count that is incremented by the Lock method and decremented by the Unlock method. The RepObject is deemed no longer locked when this lock count reaches zero. For example, if an application calls the Lock method twice on a given RepObject, it must eventually call Unlock twice on the same RepObject

DLL names for various Capture repositories

Below are the repository types and their corresponding dll file names

Local Repository ....................... RILLocal.dll
Shared repository ....................... RILShared.dll
CE Repository ....................... RILCE.dll
Shared CE Repository ....................... RILSharedCE.dll
Image Services Repository ....................... RILBES34.dll
Offline IS Repository ....................... RILOfflineIS.dll
Shared CS Repository ...................... RILSharedCE.dll
Shared Offline IS Respository ...................... RILSharedOLIS.dll

Using IBM MQ from a windows form based .NET application

In order to connect to IBM MQ from a windows form .NET application install the following two softwares:
1). IBM WebSphere MQ client + Fix Pack 6.0.2
2). IBM Message Service Client for .NET (Available for download from http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=171&uid=swg24011756)

Internet Connection is being shown but not openeing any site - Ubuntu 9.X

Open FirexFox in Ubuntu and type about:config
Find the entry network.dns.disableIPv6.
Double click this entry would change its value to 'true'
Rebooot pc and internet would work.

Please visit the below link for more information
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessTroubleShootingGuide

Use Ubuntu with Windows Vista 32 Bit - How to solve booting problem

Problem: Installed Ubuntu 9.X on a USB from a pc having Windows Vista (SP2-32bit) installed. After installation of Ubuntu tried to boot Windows by selecting HDD from Bootup menu. It failed and prompted following :
------------------------
GRUB LOADING
Error:no such disk
Grub Rescue>
------------------------
Connected the USB which I used to install UBUNTU and it displayed boot up menu from GRUB. This menu showed options related to Ubuntu and one option for Windows Vista. When selected Windows Vista option it booted up normally.

Solution : This was happening because the Windows Boot Loader was changed to GRUB Loader in BIOS. I followed below steps to change Boot Loader from GRUB to WINDOWS.
1). Started Pc with the WINDOWS VISTA media.
2). Selected 'Repair mode'.
3). Select Command prompt and run command bootrec/fixmbr to fix the master boot record.
Visit following links for more information
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392 and
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial147.html

The repository database is already associated with the CE server.

Scenario : We were using shared content engine server 4.5 through Capture Professional 5.2 and were able to perform all the required operations. The database we were using is SQL Server 2005. Due to some migration activity we were needed to drop and recreate the existing object stores. After it happened we were not able to open and connect to the CE repositories and were getting following error:



Solution : When we configure a Shared CE repository for the first time it creates few tables for house keeping purpose. These tables are only used by Capture internally. Among these table , there is one table named 'DBInfo'. It has following structure :

RowID PropertyName PropertyValue
1 UsageType Repository
2 RepositoryType Shared CE Repository
3 RepositoryConnection {GUID Value}
4 CapProVersion {Capture Pro Version}

Follow the below steps:
a). In this table update the GUID Value to the new GUID Value of object store.
b). Delete the DSN pointing to the sql database for your CE Shared repository.
c). Delete the capture repository using Capture Manager.
d). Create DSN accessing the same SQL Database.
e). Configure the same CE Shared repository again.

Now open Capture Professional. you should be able to see your repository.

How big (Size) a batch can be in Capture Professional?

Answer :
There are limits to the batch size when using File Import in Capture Professional. These limits are not configurable.Here are the Maximum limits:
* Pages per Document - 1000
* Pages per Batch - 5000
Recommendations
* Limit the size of a batch to less than 50 pages of similar documents, when possible, to ensure the batch is manageable for both the operator and the system.
* If the batch is assembled as a single document, and is running into the 1000 page limit, consider breaking the batch into several documents. This both makes the batch more manageable and increases the page limit up to the batch limit of 5000.

Capture Manager does not show any object store.

Environment : FileNet Enterprise Manager 4.5, FileNet Capture Professional 5.2 and WSE 3.0
OS: Windows XP SP3
Problem : Open Capture Manager and then select repository type 'Shared Content Engine. When click 'Add' button nothing happens.It does not show CE credentials dialog and hence does not display any CE object store. But Able to see CE object stores through Enterprise Manager.

Solution: This happens if 'Compatibility URL' is not specified while installing Enterprise Manager. Provide URL at the time of installation and change it if required by editing the CompatibilityURL registry entry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\FILENET\ECM\CONTENT ENGINE\CLIENT

How does Panagon IDM Desktop communicates with FileNet Image server.

Answer : IDM desktop uses a NCH (port) to locate the object from doc services and uses a COR (port) 32769/tcp to transfer them.

Filenet capture has encountered an error see the event log meessage

Problem : FileNet Capture crashed on opening after configuring it for the first time. Created new SQL Server 2005 databases and configured DSN for them. In Capture Manager while configuring the Capture repository, Specify this DSN. Once the repository is set, start Capture Professional and it display following error :

"Filenet capture has encountered an error see the event log meessage."

Solution : The databases were created with the default collation and were creating the problem. So the databases were recreated using appropriate collation. Visit the link below for more information on collation :
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa174903(SQL.80).aspx

Retrieve to cache failed

Problem : User gets 'Retrieve to cache failed' error while trying to retrieve document from IS using IDM Desktop.
Solution : This error indicates that the document retrieval failed from MSAR to Page Cache.
1. Your Alternative IS Page Cache is not configured/spelled correctly.
2. Your Alternative IS Page Cache machine is not up and running.
3. Could be Network issue (Ping Cache machine to see if it is alive)
4. If you don't need the Alternative IS Page Cache at all, reset it to default (use the primary default one)
To access this Alternate IS Page Cache, follow this instruction path:
IDM Configure --> Additional Preferences... -> -> Alternative IS Page Cache --> Then either add the 3 part name or click Restore Default.
Note:
3 part name format: ::
e.g: page_cache2:Spot:FileNET

Description of different Capture Index Field Lists

FileNet Image Services (IS)
- Menu: An index field of type "Menu", is a property that has a list of values associated with it. When a Capture Index field is of type Menu and is associated with a DocClass, the user must select a value from the list provided, in order to populate the field. From the Capture native application, the field will have a drop-down list of values that will be available for the user to select. Only one value is allowed to be selected and the user cannot enter a value that is not on the list.
[Auto-Indexing is supported, if the configured value is a member of the Menu list. If the Auto-Indexing value is not a member of the Menu list, it will be ignored by Capture and the Menu field will be left blank.]

FileNet Content Services (CS)
- Controlled Vocabulary list (CVL): A CVL is like an IS Menu. The user will be able to select from a list of values, in order to populate an index field.
[Auto-Indexing is supported, if the configured value is a member of the list. If the Auto-Indexing value is not a member of the CVL, it will be ignored by Capture and the CVL field will be left blank.]

- Existing Value List (EVL): An EVL is a list of previously entered values of that particular Index Field. EVLs differ from CVLs and Menus, because a user can enter a new value that is not a member of the list. The value must, however, meet the index field conditions (e.g. for Numeric Types, numbers must be entered).
[Auto-Indexing is supported and the value configured does not need to be a member of the EVL]

- Multiple Value Lists (MVL): An index field that is of type MVL, can have multiple lines/values associated with it. For instance, an MVL property named "address" can have the following entry:
IBM Corporation
1 New Orchard Road
Armonk, New York 10504-1722
United States
914-499-1900

With MVLs, a CVL and an EVL can be associated with it. If associated with a CVL, only the values from the CVL can be used to populate the lines of the MVL field.
[Auto-Indexing is supported, however, only the first line will be populated. Other subsequent lines would have to be entered manually. In addition, if a CVL is associated with the MVL, the auto-index value must match one of the values of the CVL; otherwise, it will be ignored, and the MVL field will be left blank.]


FileNet P8 Content Engine (CE)
- Choice List: A Choice List is similar to an IS Menu and a CS CVL. The user will be able to select from a list of values, in order to populate an index field.
[Auto-Indexing is supported, if the configured value is a member of the list. If the Auto-Indexing value is not a member of the Choice List, it will be ignored by Capture and the field will be left blank.]

- Multi-Value field: A Multi-Value field is similar to a CS MVL. Multiple lines of data can be entered in an index field (e.g. just like an address, mentioned above). Similar to a CS MVL field, a Choice List can be associated with a Multi-Value field. In these Multi-Value configurations, the user can only enter data that is part of the Choice List.
[Auto-Indexing is supported in Capture 5.1 and 5.2, however, only the first line will be populated. Other subsequent lines would have to be entered manually. In addition, if a Choice List is associated with the Multi-Value List, the auto-index value must then match one of the values from the list; otherwise, it will be ignored, and the Multi-Value field will be left blank. In Capture 5.0, the Auto-Indexing feature is not available with Multi-Value fields]

Please Note :
Menu Validation-- The Capture client application has an option/feature to associate a CE or IS single value field, with a list. The list is created by a Capture station and is saved as part of the Settings Collection. When a Menu Validation is utilized, the user sees a similar drop-down list (like a CVL or a Choice List), however, this list is not determined by the server but by the Capture Administrator. The list is created when configuring the Index control of a Settings Collection.

Using IBM FileNet Capture 5.1, when calling the "Store" method on the Scan component, it returns a -2147417848 error code.

Scenario :
From out-of-the-box Capture 5.1, a batch was created successfully and able to scan images without any problems. However, from the custom Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 code, a batch was also created successfully but when storing the batch by calling Scan.Store(oBatch) to the Scan component, the error below would occur:

err.Description = Method 'Store' of object '_DScan' failed
err.Number = -2147417848

Solution
The error is caused by the custom code not knowing which scanner to select.
The recommendation on different methods of assigning a scanner to the Scan component are as follows:

* Configure the Scan component on the setting to contain a default scanner so when a batch is created, it defaults to an associated scanner configured with the Scan component.

* Call the "Scan.SelectScanner" and allow the user using the custom code to select a scanner.

* Prior to calling Scan.Store(oBatch), assign a scanner to the Scan component via "Scan1.Associate("")

How big (Size) a batch can be in Capture Professional?

Answer:
There are limits to the batch size when using File Import in Capture Professional. These limits are not configurable.Here are the Maximum limits:
* Pages per Document - 1000
* Pages per Batch - 5000
Recommendations
* Limit the size of a batch to less than 50 pages of similar documents, when possible, to ensure the batch is manageable for both the operator and the system.
* If the batch is assembled as a single document, and is running into the 1000 page limit, consider breaking the batch into several documents. This both makes the batch more manageable and increases the page limit up to the batch limit of 5000.