XactCommerce

XactCommerce XactCommerce Business Logic Server Performance and Scalability

The XactCommerce™ engine has been shown to perform extremely well. Go to one of our example sites. Just observe the speed that pages and graphics load. Compare this to other sites having the same complexity and graphics. The speed is striking, especially when compared to sites using ASP or JSP technologies.

We wanted to get some idea about how well the XactCommerce™ engine performed. So we downloaded WebBench from Ziff Davis's ZDNet. Our nonscientific but we think reasonably accurate test measured the XactCommerce™ engine serving 72+ pages per second on a Dual Pentium 400 Debian Linux based server processing a moderately complex database driven LeXml™ e-commerce site page. In this configuration the database server was running also on the same machine as the web and application server meaning that all the work was being performed by this one server. The clients were all on the same 100BaseT net.

This test was measuring dynamic page serving (pages generated in part from information stored in the Database) without compression or SSL encryption. The numbers are impressive, but unfortunately, not the real world of a working eBusiness site. It was not receiving form submits, processing credit cards, sending emails, recording transactions, preparing reports or doing all of the other neat things that this technology can do at the same time. These transactions are more processor and resource intensive. Also, on e-commerce sites many more folks visit than actually buy. This means that an e-commerce site may serve 100 or 200 pages per order actually received. Sites catering to business customers or your field sales force, or perhaps just doing the normal business of handling invoicing, time records, shipping and receiving are often even more processor intensive. Still this testing gives us the ability to make estimates of how an real eBusiness site will perform.

You may also decide to use an Application Service Provider. This is a company, often an ISP (Internet Service Provider), which will provide XactCommerce™ Servers for you to use based on your needs. You simply have them set up your XactCommerce™ site on the appropriate machine(s) for your needs and according to your budget, and let them worry about buying and maintaining all of this hardware and software. If you need faster processing, more bandwidth, etc. You just upgrade the service you are purchasing.

These decisions are based on many factors, please don't hesitate to ask us to help analyze your company's specific needs.