bluemix xpages performance and architecture

Question

I have a few questions about bluemix xpages runtime.

As of now (Aug 2016) Xpages NoSQL Database is still experimental. Is there an ETA for this NoSQL service to become GA ?

As of now, to have better control over performance, a separate domino server has to be provisioned to host the NSF datastore as described in https://developer.ibm.com/bluemix/2015/11/10/hybrid-xpages-applications-on-bluemix/

What are the best practices to minimize latency for the traffic between the XPages frontend and the backend server hosting the NSF datastore ? Should the domino server be hosted on IBM SoftLayer ?

Does the XPages runtime provide visibility into the network performance between the Xpages runtime and the NSF backend ?

I presume that the number of xpages runtime instances can be increased to handle increased traffic (horizontal scaling). However, the domino backend where the NSF is stored would eventually become a bottleneck, and can only be scaled by increasing the power (CPU/RAM) of the machine. (vertical scaling). Are there plans to offer Xpages NoSQL backend that can also scale horizontally?

In a hybrid bluemix xpages setup, the xpages runtime can be stood up using a custom server.id.

When the xpages runtime is scaled up by increasing the number of instances, would all the instances use the same server.id ? AFAIK, in a domino domain, each server would use a unique server.id. Should this be a cause for concern ?

Is xpages buildpack available (under some license) to be run on any other cloudfoundry instance ?

Thank you in advance for responding.

Answer 1

The question on NSF availability on Bluemix is better asked at the Blumix forum on ibm.com/developerworks. Or ask your IBM representative.

So far I have not seen any plan regarding such a service.

You need to look at your use case carefully:

• you want to "just go to cloud": move your Domino servers to softlayer and you are done
• you want to spice up your Domino applications with some Bluemix services (Watson seems popular these days): define that services in Bluemix, unbound to any runtime. They all expose https APIs. Call those from your main Domino server
• You want to use Domino data in other Bluemix applications: either call DAS on your main Domino directly or, when it remains behind a (corporate) firewall use API Management and/or the secure tunnel service in Bluemix
• want the performance monitoring service: if it's mainly about the traffic: use an nginx build pack (64M will do nicely) and add the service there. Will give you modern protocols and deep control what to accept/send in http. Use that as proxy in front of your Domino
  • need auto scale for your application: use XPages on Bluemix (note: doesn't scale database servers)

Hope that helps

Answer 2

As far as I know there are no plans to make the Domino database layer available on Bluemix. As a result, there are also no plans, as far as I know, to have a horizontally scaling backend. I think your concern over scalability is valid, I've not heard a reasonable answer.

For these very valid reasons I've not investigated XPages on Bluemix very deeply, as well as the fact that the Domino (data) server you use elsewhere will also have an XPages runtime, included in the cost rather than charged in addition.

In terms of communication, this is not via HTTP but via NRPC. At IBM Connect earlier this year the server guys outlined steps they were taking or had taken to further secure the NRPC communication (I believe it's pretty secure already, this was extra encryption I believe, but as a non-admin I didn't fully understand the reasons). If you look at the URL for attachments or images stored in rich text fields, for example, you'll see it uses XPiNC syntx rather than the syntax you normally get for XPages on the web.

I believe additional instances would have the same server ID. You only upload the NSF once to Bluemix, it handles the deployment to the multiple instances.

I don't think the XPages buildpack is available for other cloudfoundry instances, but I can't say for certain. I think what you currently see on Bluemix is all there is.