System under test (SUT) overview

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This section introduces the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution and how it is implemented as system under test (SUT) for this project.

The SUT was set up with basic IBM® FileNet® P8 core components including a FileNet P8 Content Engine (CE) running as a WebSphere application, a FileNet P8 Process Engine (PE) and a FileNet P8 Application Engine (AE). These components together form an elementary ECM system also addressing Business Process Management (BPM) requirements.

The SUT implements a three-tier architecture model, enabling client components to interact with data resources and legacy applications.

The architecture model with logical tiers is distributed across three independent systems:

  • Client components running on local workstations (tier one)
  • FileNet P8 application servers running on a remote server (tier two)
  • Database and security servers running in the back-end on a remote server (tier three)

Tier one is responsible for the presentation and user interaction with second-tier processes. The client components enable the user to interact in a secure manner, by using FileNet P8 APIs to access the second tier servers. Tier-one client processes never access any third-tier services on the database server directly.

Tier one could be either an IBM Content Navigator client, Workplace XT client, or a custom client using the P8 Java™ APIs generating transactions against the FileNet CE/PE servers.

Tier two processes are also known as the application logic layer. These processes manage the business logic of the application and provide access to third-tier services. It is the layer where most of the data processing occurs. CE and PE would represent the application logic layer for this setup. CE runs under the control of a WebSphere Application Server (WAS), while PE runs in a standalone Java JVM.

Tier three services are protected from direct access by any tier one components. Usually these services reside in a secure network (inside the System z® box for example). Interaction is only possible through the second-tier processes. The DB2® database server and the LDAP security server are considered as tier three services in this case.

Figure 1. Overview of the system under test (SUT)

The system is set up in a virtualized environment using a z/VM® hypervisor running in a IBM System z LPAR. The IBM FileNet P8 core components, the database server and LDAP security server were set up as four z/VM Linux® guests in total. For inter-guest connectivity a z/VM guest LAN over a VSWITCH has been implemented. Client systems outside the System z system are connected via a 10GbE LAN. The DASD devices for the CE file system file store and the FileNet databases resided on an IBM System Storage® DS8800 storage subsystem and also the DASD devices used for the z/VM hypervisor and the Linux guest operating systems. To provide a high I/O bandwidth storage pool striping was enabled for the storage subsystem. In addition, a couple of HyperPAV aliases are assigned to the CE/PE guest and the database server Linux guests, where higher disk I/O rates are expected for the SUT.

An IBM Flex System® blade is used as the ECM workload driver. The workload simulator software uses the CE and PE Java APIs to emulate a custom application. The Flex blade is connected over the 10GbE network to the IBM z196 server.