-
Brian Schanen joined Autodesk in 2005 as a Product Designer and currently is a Customer Success Engineer for Autodesk’s Data Management products. Brian has taught at Autodesk University numerous times and has authored white papers on Vault and Productstream. He works with customers to implement a complete digital prototyping solution specializing in Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Vault and Productstream. Brian lives near Detroit, Michigan.
-
Performance and Scalability in Productstream 2009
March 17, 2008, 10:48 PM Brian SchanenSeveral improvements to the Autodesk Data Management solution have been introduced to accommodate larger amounts of data and users. In this article, we’ll examine new features that address performance, scalability, and help maintain the system integrity. Note that the following features are also included in Vault as well.
New Search Engine Technology
The search engine technology used for Productstream has been updated with the latest technology available ensuring search performance is optimized. You will notice a dramatic increase in the response time of any search conducted in the system.
Negative Bias Property Management
In previous versions of Productstream, any new file level property that was found in the system was automatically added to the database and made available for searching. This process lead to unwanted properties displayed to the users and sub-optimal performance with searching. Productstream 2009 now offers a “negative bias” on property management; meaning that new properties will automatically be recognized but will not be made available in the system until the administrator turns them on and re-indexes the server.
Basic Find bar
Over the years users have told us that the primary way that data is searched in Productstream is through the “basic” find, or the “Find Bar” located throughout the system. Given this we’ve made it possible to now configure the specific properties that are relevant to users on a daily basis. This configuration leads to higher level of accuracy and faster searches. In addition to the improvements to the basic find; the search box is now available by default for all users and “always on” encouraging its use.
The Find Bar (formerly ‘Basic’ find) also offers a new Search Builder paradigm making it easy to build an advanced search at any time. Users can add multiple search criteria to quickly narrow down their searches.
Advanced Search Editing
The Advanced tab in the Find dialog has also been improved with a subtle workflow change that allows a change to a previously added property / value pair. By simply selecting the previously added criteria along and then the “Replace” button, users can quickly change out the value of a search criteria without having to click Remove and then Add the updated conditions and values to the list.
Parameterized Search
Parameterized searches are now available with the advanced find and saved searches. For any criteria you like you can set the value to “ask me later” as opposed to an actual value. These searches will then ask the user for information before actually executing.
Re-Indexing
The re-indexing command has been enhanced to run as a separate process on the server. This process will run as a “below normal” priority and will allow an administrator to re-index the server without loading the server. Additionally the re-index command can also be run without blocking access to the server and can pause and continue for operations such as backup and server reboots. Finally, each document that is indexed is run as a separate transaction ensuring that if any of the many documents fail to index the server will simply continue to the next instead of failing. A report of any failed documents can be generated at the end of the process.
Paging
In previous versions of Productstream entire search results would be returned regardless of the number of records that were possible for the query. In Productstream 2009 the administrator can set up a threshold for the maximum number of records that can be returned at a single time. If additional results are needed for the users work a “More” button is presented where blocks of data can be added to the search results.
This paging effects the following: search results, Item master, Change Order List, and Custom Views. Paging will not only provide fast performance as the amount of data scales but also requires less resources on the server as users search for data, since less data will always be returned.
-Brian Schanen
You must be logged in to post a comment.