+

Search Tips   |   Advanced Search

Performance implications for the server

We must consider two questions when you measure the Mobile Application Management feature and its impact on performance.

  1. Does IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation save information about a device when it accesses the server?

  2. Does IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation enforce access rights when a device tries to access the server?


Saving device information

The MobileFirst administrator can control whether the server saves device information to the internal database when a device connects to the MobileFirst Server. This behavior is controlled by the following flag in worklight.properties:

When this flag is enabled, the MobileFirst Server attempts to store information about the device each time a device begins a new session with the server. In terms of performance, this behavior results in a potential database write each time that a device starts a new session.

This flag is enabled by default in production, and is used for license tracking. Do not disable this flag unless you fully understand the implications. For more information about licensing, see License tracking.


Enforcing access rights

The MobileFirst Server tries to save the device information only on the first request of a session from the device. However, IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation must enforce access rights on every request that is made to the server from the device. This behavior ensures that the rights that are set by the MobileFirst administrator take effect immediately. This feature can be controlled by the following flag in worklight.properties:

From a performance perspective, this behavior results in an extra database read that occurs each time that the device tries to access a resource on the server. The performance hit for the read is smaller than the write for saving device information. Administrators must consider the fact that this read occurs every time that a device tries to connect to the server. When this flag is disabled, the administrator can still view the devices in the database from the operations console. However, they cannot block access from the device to the MobileFirst Server.


Space limitations for the database

Database administrators must consider how enabling the Mobile Application Management feature can affect the Worklight runtime database size. The Mobile Application Management feature does not affect the Worklight raw reports database. The following example shows a typical database row entry for a single device:

For each application that the device uses, another entry is created as follows:

The size impact for each device is small. However, administrators must consider the potential size increases if their MobileFirst Server serves thousands of devices that use multiple applications that are hosted by the server. Devices can be deleted from the runtime database in the operations console, but each device entry has a Last Accessed time stamp column. That time stamp gives administrators the ability to clear out old rows that are no longer being used, by creating custom queries.

Database rows containing device information are used for licensing purposes. Database administrators must not delete data from these rows if the action of deleting the data affects licensing.


Parent topic: Mobile application management