Syndication tuning

We can use different syndication strategies to balance the currency of the content with the performance the environment requires. As with any process, syndication entails a performance cost, and this should be taken into account when specifying...

• Frequency of syndication
• Number of syndication relationships for any given server.

Syndication interval

Used to cap how often syndication occurs.

Automatic syndication is enabled by default when IBM WebSphere Portal is installed. The default setting for the syndication interval ensures maximum currency. Adjust the value accordingly if the currency demands of the environment do not call for the shortest interval.

Interval setting	Recommended environments
10 minutes - 2 hours	Staging servers to delivery servers.
30 seconds - 10 minutes	Any environment that requires frequent replication, such as an authoring server to a staging server, a test server, or distributed authoring server. When increasing the syndication interval for environments where authoring servers are involved, be mindful that timely replication is often essential, particularly in collaborative authoring environments where multiple authors on different servers might be working on the same content.

Syndication types

Live items:

Live item syndication is mostly used when syndicating to a staging or delivery server. The following items are syndicated:

• Published
• Expired

Draft items, projects and items in a project are not syndicated.

Live and projects:

Gradually syndicate projects to a staging or delivery server, rather than waiting to syndicate all items at once in a project after they have achieved a published state. The following items are syndicated:

• Published
• Expired
• Projects
• Draft items in a project

Draft items outside of projects are not syndicated.

All items:

Mostly used when syndicating between servers within an authoring environment. The following items are syndicated:

• Published
• Expired
• Projects
• Draft items in a project
• Other draft items
• Versions
• Deleted items

Manual syndication

It is not necessary to wait for the syndication interval to elapse in order to perform syndication. Manual syndication can be used at any time to cause syndication to occur immediately. There are different ways to take advantage of manual syndication:

• We can use manual syndication in conjunction with the syndication interval to provide flexibility. For example, if we are using an increased syndication interval to optimize performance between servers, we can still perform manual syndication when you need to update content without waiting for the next syndication.

• If you require complete control of when syndication occurs, we can use manual syndication as the only means of performing syndication. For this approach, disable automatic syndication so that the syndication interval setting is ignored.

Publish and expire dates

Because the syndication interval is not based on a scheduled time of the day, it is not suitable for setting up syndication to run during off-peak times. The publish date and expire date are the preferred methods for doing this.

The publish date for each content item specifies the date and time when the content should be published to a website. After a content item is approved and the publish date is reached, the content item is queued for syndication according to the next syndication interval. By using the publish date, we can delay the publishing of content, effectively delaying its syndication. For example, if we are using a short syndication interval to ensure timely replication of most content, we can delay the syndication of less urgent content through the publish date for that content.

The expire date specifies the date and time when the content item should be removed from a website. As with the publish date, we can use the expire date to cause the syndication activity associated with removing the content to occur at a time when other syndication activity is less intensive.

For more information on the publish and expire dates in the workflow process, refer to Item status.

Parent: Administer syndication