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One of the leading causes of systems failure is poor scalability planning.  A system that is designed with scalability in mind can avoid future growth issues by eliminating bottlenecks and taking advantage of additional resources as the system’s scale increases. 

The KAURI Framework:

• Implements a scale-as-you-go architecture that takes full advantage of adding additional resources.   

• Infrastructure was designed and built with ease of scalability in mind. 

• Works equally well on single server applications with a limited number of users or complete server farms supporting thousands of users. 

• Achieves high levels of scalability by implementing each logical task as a function that can be run simultaneously, in parallel. The presentation layer runs on the client machine using the Internet Explorer browser where scaling is not an issue. The application layer is implemented through Internet Information Server (IIS) and BizTalk – both of which are proven to be highly scalable. 

• No functional component is tied to a specific server or resource.  This allows the implementation of features such as network load balancing to maximize resource usage.  The data layer is separate from the application layer and is also implemented as multiple functions that can run in parallel. This architecture provides the KAURI Framework with the proven ability to support upward and outward scalability and allows for the strategic addition of resources to address a specific area of the application where performance may be affected.

• The Windows Server 2003 family of servers is the foundation required by a KAURI Framework system. The Windows Server 2003 family includes numerous applications, utilities, and technologies that facilitate scalability at all levels. They work in concert to deliver a scalable architecture that is also reliable, manageable, and secure. Working with the Windows Server 2003, IIS 6.0 also provides important architectural functionality that supports scalability.  Functionality such as Application Pools, Web Gardens and Processor Affinitization are all geared toward increasing scalability and performance. 

• Clustering of servers is another important scalability feature provided in the KAURI Framework environment. Microsoft 2003 Servers provide three technologies to support clustering: Network Load Balancing (NLB), Component Load Balancing (CLB), and Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS).

  • Network Load Balancing acts as a front-end cluster, distributing incoming traffic across a cluster of servers, and is ideal for enabling incremental scalability and outstanding availability for browser-based applications. NLB enhances scalability by distributing its client requests across multiple servers within the cluster. As traffic increases, additional servers can be added to the cluster; up to 32 servers are possible in any one cluster. NLB also provides high availability by automatically detecting the failure of a server and repartitioning client traffic among the remaining servers within 10 seconds, while it provides users with continuous service.

  • Component Load Balancing distributes workload across multiple servers running a site's business logic. In CLB, the components live on servers in a separate cluster. Calls to activate components are load balanced to different servers within the cluster. CLB complements both NLB and Cluster Service by acting on the middle tier of a multi-tiered clustered network.  Both CLB and Cluster Service can run on the same group of machines.

  • Cluster Service acts as a back-end cluster; it provides high availability for applications such as databases, messaging and file and print services. MSCS attempts to minimize the effect of failure on the system as any node (a server in the cluster) fails or is taken offline.

For more information, contact Technology Partnership Group at info@techpg.com