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