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eXtreme Scale provides huge memory stores on commodity hardware. What can't you do with large, cheap memory stores?

These memory stores are distributed and incorporate redundancy to be highly available.

Data in memory is much quicker and easier to access than memory on disk. End user response times and system throughput are improved. Load on backend EIS and databases are reduced by large memory caches, thus increasing the workload you may process and your scalability.

The IBM WebSphere DataPower XC10 Appliance is also a solution for the usage patterns and use cases below noted by .

eXtreme Scale Usage Patterns

There are four fundamental eXtreme Scale Usage Patterns:

1. Side Cache Usage Pattern
   
   
2. Inline Cache Usage Pattern
   
   
3. Application State Store
   
   
4. eXtreme Transaction Processing
   
   

eXtreme Scale Customer Use Cases

There are a large number (> 10) of Customer Use Cases. There is a page for each use case, showing which of the above usage patterns each use case exploits. Each pattern has links to the customer use case exploiting it. Each page has diagrams and links to videos, articles and references.

How do I get started?

One approach is to ask what is the easiest way to get started?

From an ease-of-implmementation perspective, there are three general ways to use WebSphere eXtreme Scale:

1. Configuration only: No application coding changes required, just configuration changes. In these cases, WebSphere eXtreme Scale provides plug-ins to the existing infrastructure that applications are already using to extend the infrastructure's caching capabilities with those of WebSphere eXtreme Scale. To use eXtreme Scale in these changes, you need only make a few small configuration changes. These patterns are:
   • Side Cache Usage Pattern
     • Dynamic Cache Service
     • Hibernate / OpenJPA L2 Cache
   • Application State Store
     • HTTP Session Management (This case is a particularly good one to get started with!)
2. Offload redundant processing: Use WebSphere eXtreme Scale as a side cache to offload or eliminate redundant processing. (This is fundamentally what caches do: keep of copy of data so it need not be fetched or produced each time it is needed.) In these caches, you might insert a small amount of code in a few key areas and use the ObjectMap API to cache data. See:
   • Side Cache Usage Pattern
     • SOA Result cache via ESB cache mediation (This case is a particularly good one to get started with!)
       
       
3. System of Record: Dramatic scaling improvements come from changing the application's data interface to WebSphere eXtreme Scale, such that it becomes the system of record. In this case, WebSphere eXtreme Scale is an in-line cache. If you currently use JPA, you might use the WebSphere eXtreme Scale EntityManager API to make the conversion easier. See:
   • Inline Cache Usage Pattern

Point of Reference The Fantasy Sports Web Site went from purchasing eXtreme Scale to putting it in production in 6 weeks using the Inline Cache Usage Pattern. None of this is hard! Also, IBM Software Services for WebSphere is available to help.

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