Scalable Systems

ClickNetworks specialises in developing scalable systems and software solutions. Our core practice is to aim for efficiency, speed and scalability in all of our development processess, tools and technologies.

Our focus is on building large computing systems from independent service modules that can be scaled to any size. Our approach is to minimise the services that are required and to make as many services optional as possible.

That is, whenever a service can be moved to an application level library, without a significant performance or security penalty, we will prefer that approach. An alternative is to consider dynamic services that are migrated into and out of the lower levels as needed.

At the core of our scalable systems is OpenKast. Openkast does not have many moving parts. It is a small, stripped for purpose data management product for XML described data.

The Engine has a SOAP interface with a concise set of instructions to access databases, add data, edit data, delete data, manage DTD's, perform queries and return results.

Multiple engine instances can be run on a single host server. Data may be compartmentalised across several engine instances across several host servers. Each engine only knows about its own data and is unaware of the existence of any other engine or its data under management. Instances are identified by the server IP address and port on which they are configured to service application requests.

Arrays of engines can be deployed across an enterprise search resource. Performance can be scaled predictably with very large sets of complex records.