arcplan Enterprise Product Overview - Snapshot

A wide ranging application building tool for both relational and OLAP databases

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Architecture and administration

arcplan Enterprise has a three-tier architecture. The SMB edition, based on the older thick-client inSight product, has a two-tier architecture, but it is now end-of-life. The Enterprise edition, which is aimed at larger, Web-based deployments, uses a three-tier architecture. Enterprise Web client normally uses Java, with a downloaded applet called arcJava viewer. A DHTML client is also available, though it is slightly less functional and is likely to be slower than the Java client. However, it may be more acceptable for internet deployment, where Java applets are becoming less popular. A .Net client was introduced with the 4.1 release. The arcplan applications are stored in a proprietary binary format or an XML file and processed on the mid-tier server. This means that connections to databases are made via the arcplan server, and not directly from client PCs.

arcplan provides this diagram to illustrate the arcplan Enterprise architecture and how it is used. The database(s), arcplan server(s) and Web server can run on the same or separate computers and there can be up to three Web servers.

arcplan Server supports load balancing. One server must be designated as the master server and this synchronizes the other arcplan servers. The master server is used to distribute and update applications on other arcplan servers. Client initialization requests are evaluated by the first arcplan server that is contacted by the client (the registration server). There can be multiple registration servers so that if one registration server is down, a different one is used. The registration server will evaluate the load in the arcplan load-balancing cluster by considering all available arcplan servers (registration servers, master server, other arcplan servers) and re-route the client to a different server if applicable.

If a separate server is used as the master server, the arcplan service of the currently active master server must be stopped before the new master server can be specified. The administrator groups users by their accessibility (based on communications bandwidth, latency, etc) to help the registration server direct arcplan clients to the appropriate server. The administrator also sets a maximum number of concurrent users allowed per server, though this will be over-ridden at run-time if all the arcplan servers have reached their maximum allowed numbers of users.

arcplan Enterprise Designer and Administration Console run on Windows PCs, and do not have thin-client versions. arcplan Enterprise Server runs on Windows 2000, XP or 2003 but not 2008, Sun Solaris 9 or later, IBM AIX 5.2 or later and Linux (SuSE release 9.0 or later, Red Hat 7.3 or later, Red Hat Enterprise 4 or later). Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are available for all platforms.

The screen above shows arcplan working with Firefox across the internet, using the Java client. The back-end database in this case is Essbase. We found that only the Java client could be used reliably with Firefox, though arcplan says that the DHTML client should also be compatible. The screen below shows the DHTML client, running in Internet Explorer across the internet. The back-end database in this case is Analysis Services. IE will work with all three Web clients.

THIS PAGE REPRESENTS ONLY A VERY SHORT EXTRACT FROM THE FULL REVIEW.

TO VIEW THE FULL REVIEW YOU CAN PURCHASE THE REVIEW INDIVIDUALLY OR PURCHASE AN ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION TO THE OLAP REPORT WHICH ALLOWS ACCESS TO ALL OLAP REPORT CONTENT.

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