Scalability

xAssets solutions are based on a Sql Server data model which is optimized for huge scalability without compromising the depth of information stored on each asset and incident. We use Microsoft Sql Server to achieve excellent scalability and our database design is fully "normalised" with no repetition of text information or images. This means the CPU and Input/Output usage on each server is minimized and response times of 1 or 2 seconds are common even in a hosted environment.

Our client software runs in a web browser so you don't have to deploy it or install it. It works on mobile platforms and desktops. The client is a recent technology called a "single page application" which means the page never refreshes - this makes the user experience much faster and more fluid.

This technology enables support for large implementations of 100,000 discovered Windows PCs or over 1,000,000 fixed asset records in a single database on a medium specification server.

Scalability Measures

• Browser based single page application
• Use the latest Microsoft Sql Server technology
• Fully normalised database
• Database Indexes are optimized manually for large implementations
• A Single Page Application (SPA) built on top of ASP.NET technology enables fast response times, even in hosted environments
• Data is sectioned and paged so that web browsers receive manageable data sets
• For hosted installations, we use powerful servers to ensure excellent response times
• Application Server and Sql Server can be separate servers as required
• Low bandwidth queries, data compression, and browser cached javascripts ensure minimum network traffic

Large Implementations

Sites larger than 30,000 discovered Windows nodes, or 300,000 fixed asset records, receive database tuning assistance from our Sql Server Database Administrators. We carry specialist expertise in Sql Server query plan optimization. This ensures that every query runs quickly and users get the fastest possible response times.

Very Large Database (VLDB) Implementations

Sites larger than 100,000 discovered Windows nodes, or 1,000,000 fixed asset records, receive additional database design consultations from our Sql Server Database Administrators. Typically these projects would scale well and still give fast response times when the amount of child data stored against each asset is optimized to meet customer requirements taking into consideration the performance of each query.

Client Scalability

The client software runs in any modern web browser including mobile devices. The javascript footprint is tiny and the application follows a relatively new architecture called "Single Page Applications" also known as SPA. Broadly this means that the page never entirely refreshes and content only changes when it needs to. This means that each page transition is fast because content which does not change, like menus, header content, footer content, does not need to change unless the context of the page requires it to. During normal operation clients are downloading a tiny amount of data on each page transition and this equates to fast response times and huge scalability for multiple clients both in cloud and on-premise architectures.

In addition, xAssets has a client side scripting language which allows configuration of workflows, javascript behaviors, validation and form process to be manipulated by designers without needing to program in javascript, which is a fairly low level language. Instead we use a popular scripting language which is easy to read, easy to write, easy to work with and easy to debug to determine client processing and this eases configuration work and ensures reliability.

Scalability of Network Discovery Software

Our discovery technology is designed to operate on multiple networks simultaneously through multiple collection servers. Each collection server executes discovery on a schedule which can be designed around node availability, network traffic hours, administrative preferences and policies.

Each discovery operation usually runs about 75 nodes concurrently, and each discovery node takes around 4 seconds. Different IP ranges are discovered simultaneously to ensure switches do not receive traffic spikes. This typically means 75 nodes per 4 seconds and in practice, given natural delays and traffic balancing, that scales up to around 4,000 to 10,000 nodes per hour depending on the topology of the network. Each node is then written to the web server as a compressed "lazy write" to ensure that web traffic (or local traffic if your system is not hosted) is kept to a minimum.

Scalability of Integrations

The xAssets Transformation technology includes lazy write and packet based configuration options to ensure that integrations can run without impacting the performance of the underlying systems. This includes lock management functions, record stacking for later commit, multi-threaded record stacking (so records are calculated simultaneously and then saved at the end in a single commit when all threads are finished) and optimizations within Sql Server to utilise high performance commit technologies such as SqlBulkCopy.

All integrations, discoveries and other communications can be scheduled for batch processing to minimize traffic and run at the optimum time.