WITH BIGMEMORY WEBMETHODS. Introduction

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1 WEBMETHODS WITH BIGMEMORY Guaranteed low latency for all data processing needs TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Introduction 2 Key use cases for with webmethods 5 Using with webmethods 6 Next steps webmethods is the industry-leading platform for integration and API management. It brings different applications together to exchange data, whether these applications are internal or external to the enterprise environment. With the rising adoption of big data, often these applications handle large data volumes that slow down processing, resulting in violation of SLAs, dissatisfied customers and even impacts on revenue. If your business is suffering from these challenges, read this white paper to understand how in-memory technology can help. Introduction Integration is like the transportation system for an enterprise. It connects different applications to facilitate exchange of data. Any choke points, because of increased traffic or slower processing, can impact multiple areas. Choke points have become more frequent for many reasons. To start, technological advancements, like the Internet of Things, send high-velocity messages while expecting the integration system to process them at the same pace. Partners are sending larger files for processing as part of their B2B setup because greater network bandwidth is generally available. On top of this, today s always-connected customers expect response times to be always instantaneous. This is why it is important to process data as fast as possible and Software AG s enables that by storing a few gigabytes to hundreds of terabytes of data in-memory. WHITE PAPER

2 webmethods with : Guaranteed Low Latency for all Data Processing Needs is the world s easiest, most powerful in-memory data fabric platform. makes data available in real time to your applications. Because it works without any proprietary virtual machines or special hardware, it s a snap to install. And it is shipped with the newer releases of webmethods Integration, versions 9.7 and higher. The webmethods products that leverage are Integration, Business Process Management Suite (BPMS), CloudStreams, Enterprise Gateway, Mediator, Optimize, Trading Networks and OneData. enables the entire RAM available on a server to be utilized for storing data or it can be set up in a distributed environment to scale out and use the RAM available across all the servers in the cluster. It provides a tiered-storage structure where the highest-priority data can be in the same process as the application such as webmethods and uses the local RAM available on the server, followed by the distributed RAM available on the server side. Additionally, the software is designed to seamlessly transfer data between RAM and SSD depending on the latency requirements of the application. The product can integrate with older versions of webmethods without significant effort and a single instance can support multiple use cases to make webmethods and other applications run faster. Faster data processing leads to a better customer experience and can increase the customer lifetime value. It can also lead to operational benefits as faster processing could mean faster decision-making. Key use cases for with webmethods There are several use cases that can be enabled once in-memory capability is available within webmethods. The ones most commonly deployed are: 1. Caching data There are several instances where Integration (IS) is repeatedly looking up the same static data from the database. This causes unnecessary latency that can be avoided by storing data in. For example for an e-commerce environment, the product and inventory data can put a significant load on the back-end and, by storing it in, it can make the requests for that data run faster. Similarly, in telecommunications, customer service representatives in the call center can access customer data faster by storing that in-memory. This caching of data is not just limited to databases but any data source that is repeatedly accessed for the same data like mainframes, ERP environments such as SAP solutions and Oracle. WITHOUT WITH Data in Database Slow Expensive Data in Fast Cost-efficient Complex Gateway Simplified Data in Memory Data in Database Figure 1: Keep more data in to make webmethods run faster. can work with different IS machines within the cluster and allows them to access the in-memory static data that is shared across the cluster. Also, caching of data is not just limited to webmethods but can also be used with other applications to make them run faster. For example, an application that calculates invoicing for B2B partners could be made to run a lot faster by storing all the B2B partner data in-memory instead of going back and forth between the disk-based data store and the application. 2

3 2. High availability setup webmethods is often set up in a high-availability environment where it is critical to not lose user session information. In this scenario, is used for local caching and clustering. supports a fail-over node with each active node called a mirror node to provide a high-availability environment. This is shown in Figure 2 where each stripe in the Array is comprised of an active server and a mirror server. The application shown could be webmethods or any other application that needs to benefit from in-memory data storage and high availability. webmethods with : Guaranteed Low Latency for all Data Processing Needs App App App App Application Application Application Application Active Commodity Mirror Commodity Stripe Disk Disk On Commodity Mirror for High Availablilty Array TCP TCP TCP TCP Figure 2: supports % availability. 3. Large file processing Any environment that needs to process extremely large files (> 10 GB) using webmethods Integration can benefit from this use case. SCALE UP SCALE OUT Figure 3: can scale up or scale out to support large file processing. can enable data to be processed in real time by maintaining the large file in-memory. It can utilize the entire RAM available on a single server by scaling up or can scale out to store the large file in-memory across a cluster of nodes. This is a perfect fit for B2B environments where partners are sending large files for processing. This is also a great fit for environments that are getting penalized because of strict SLAs and need to expedite the processing in their environment. 3

4 webmethods with : Guaranteed Low Latency for all Data Processing Needs 4. Disaster recovery FRS FRS FRS FRS TSA #1 WAN Replication TSA #2 Active Mirror Active Mirror TCP Integration Integration Integration Integration Ehcache Ehcache Ehcache Ehcache Site 1 - Kentucky Site 1 - Colorado Figure 4: works with IS to support disaster recovery across data centers. Disaster recovery is important for mission-critical enterprise environments. For such environments, Integration is deployed across two data centers. can be deployed along with IS in each data center. All the data maintained in IS can be in and, using s WAN replication capability, it can be automatically replicated to the instance in the other data center. This feature only works with webmethods 9.7 and higher. With, you get: Real-time access to terabytes of in-memory data High throughput with low, predictable latency Support for Java, Microsoft.NET/C#, C++ applications (this means not just webmethods but other applications can improve their performance too) percent uptime Linear scale to grow from a few gigabytes in-memory to hundreds of terabytes of data in-memory Data consistency guarantees across multiple servers Optimized data storage across RAM and SSD Reduced infrastructure costs through maximum hardware utilization Support for data replication across multiple data centers for disaster recovery 4

5 Using with webmethods To enable the above use cases, needs to work with webmethods. webmethods started using with version in which was introduced to support clustering and fail-over. With version 9.7, was added as part of the product for extending to the caching related use cases. But can integrate with any version of webmethods since it is a Java Archive (JAR) file that can be added to the classpath of any Java application within or outside webmethods. Let s review how works for different versions of webmethods. 1. For webmethods versions older than In this scenario, webmethods and can be integrated by webmethods using the APIs within the Java services. Key data sets from webmethods (and other applications) can be maintained in to make the latency go lower. All the applications can use the same instance of. 2. For webmethods versions between and 9.6 is already integrated with these versions of webmethods for clustering and fail-over. Hence it only requires sizing it and procuring the right capacity for storing the data in-memory. No integration is required though additional hardware may be required if more RAM is required for storing data in-memory. 3. For webmethods versions 9.7 and beyond is used with these versions of webmethods for caching and the setup needs to be configured to use in-memory capacity. Again no integration is required and no new hardware may be required if the existing servers have sufficient RAM for the specific storage requirements. webmethods with : Guaranteed Low Latency for all Data Processing Needs 5

6 webmethods with : Guaranteed Low Latency for all Data Processing Needs Here are some customer use cases where and webmethods are being used together. A leading telecom firm s customer service department is using the webmethods ESB and Terracotta Array to offer an enhanced customer experience. The service department s call center application caches 100s of GBs of customer data to reduce data access latency. The call center application identifies the caller and retrieves customer data including contact details, product plans, account history and issues even before the caller speaks with the agent. Caching the data reduces the number of database calls and improves performance dramatically. A financial services firm is offloading the processing of large XML and flat-file documents from mainframe to the webmethods ESB. The webmethods ESB uses an enhanced /Ehcache-based XML parser that reads and parses the entire XML file in memory. In conjunction with Terracotta for off-heap caching, the webmethods ESB can process several large files concurrently. A retailer in Europe sees e-commerce as the future and is expecting huge increases in online transactions. The current warehouse, product and order management applications cannot be scaled to support the expected load. An SOA service layer based on the webmethods ESB uses distributed caching to cache volumes of data and shields inflexible back-end applications from the load. Terracotta-based clustering provides the necessary scale and performance to support real-time access to online shopppers. Next steps There is a reason why Software AG brought webmethods and together: to alleviate performance concerns. So, stop struggling with performance challenges, issues with high availability or disaster recovery and unfulfilled SLAs. Utilize with webmethods to create an environment where performance issues become history. Talk to your Software AG representative for more details. 6

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8 webmethods with : Guaranteed Low Latency for all Data Processing Needs ABOUT SOFTWARE AG Software AG offers the world s first Digital Business Platform. Recognized as a leader by the industry s top analyst firms, Software AG helps you combine existing systems on premises and in the cloud into a single platform to optimize your business and delight your customers. With Software AG, you can rapidly build and deploy digital business applications to exploit real-time market opportunities. Get maximum value from big data, make better decisions with streaming analytics, achieve more with the Internet of Things, and respond faster to shifting regulations and threats with intelligent governance, risk and compliance. The world s top brands trust Software AG to help them rapidly innovate, differentiate and win in the digital world. Learn more at Software AG. All rights reserved. Software AG and all Software AG products are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Software AG. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. SAG_webMethods_with 8PG_WP_Mar16