Blazeds - Spring - Messaging - Selective server data push - apache-flex

I have a flex UI which communicates with server using spring blazeds. I have a very typical requirement of Live data streaming on a panel in UI.
Requirement is like this,
We have an object say, Person and server keeps pushing its data on blazeds message destination where UI panel consumer has subscribed and hence user can see this live data in a panel.
User can open multiple panels in same browser to view data for different Persons at the same time (e.g id=1,2,3 respectively)
There can be multiple UI users who may be viewing the same data for person id=1 at a given time, lets say.
Basically I want to separate data between UI panels. UI panel opened for person id=1 must not display data of that for person id=2. I am doing this using headers-selectors, but apparently I found out that the differentiation to select and display what data happens on UI which is causing performance issues. I learned that using subtopics may improve performance.
But, before proceeding for it, I want to know, will UI browser end up in receiving data irrespective of subtopic assigned to data and then consumer will decide to accept it or not? If so, the problem will remain the same. Is there any good way to achieve the objective.
-Miral

Yes, it is faster to use subtopics, check this article - http://cornelcreanga.com/2010/09/blazeds-message-selectors-vs-subtopics/
The message filtering will be done only on the server, no mater what approach are you going to choose.
As a suggestion you should check this guide and create some scenarios, if you think that you can hit some performance problems.

Related

something in ngrx (redux pattern) than I still dont get for large applications

I've been building data driven applications for about 18 years and for the past two, I've been successfuly using angular for my large forms/crud based apps. You know, the classic sql server db with hundreds of tables with millons of records. So far, so good.
Now I'm porting/re-engineering a desktop app with about 50 forms, all complex, all fully functional, "smart". My approach for the last couple years was to simply work tightly with the backend rest API to retrieve, insert or update data as needed and everything works fine.
Then I stumbled across ngrx and I understand exactly how it works, what it does and why it is good for a "reactive" app.
My problem is the following: In the usual lifecycle of the kind of systems i mentioned, you always have to deal with fresh data and always have to tell everything to the server. Almost no data in such apps can be safely "stored" localy since transactional systems rely on centralized data interactions. There's no such thing as "hey lets keep this employee's sales here for later use".
So why would it be so important to manage a local 'store' when most of my data is volatile? I understand why it would be useful for global app data like user-profile or general ui related state, but for the core data itself? I dont get it. You query for data, plug that data in the form, it gets processed by the user and sent back to the server. That data is no longer needed, and if you do need it, you ask for it again, as it could have changed its state since the last time you interacted with it.
I do not understand the great lengths i have to go to mantain a local store and all the boilerplate if that state is so volatile.
They say change detection does not scale but I've build some really large web apps with a simple "http service" pattern and it works just fine, cause most of the component-tree is destroyed anyway as you go somewhere else in the app, and any previous subscriptions become useless. Even with large-bulky-kinky forms, it's never that big of a problem the inner workings of a form as to require external "aid" fro a store. The way I see it, the "state" of a form is a concern of that form in that moment alone. Is it to keep the component tree in sync? never had problems with that before... even for complicated trees with lots of shared data, master detail is kind of a flat pattern in the end if al lthe data is there.
For other components, such as grids, charts, reporte, etc, same thing applyes. They get the data they need and then "puf", gone.
So now you see my mindset. I AM trying to change it to something better. Why am I missing out the redux pattern?
I have a bit of experience here! It's all subjective, so what I've done may not suit you. My system is a complex system that sounds like it's on a similar scale as yours. I battled at first with the same issues of "why build complex logic on the front end and back end", and "why bother keeping stuff in state".
A redux/NGRX approach works for me because there are multiple ways data can be changed - perhaps it's a single user using the front end, perhaps it's another user making a change and I want to respond to that change straight away to avoid concurrency issues down the track. Perhaps there are multiple parts within my front end that can manipulate the same data.
At the back end, I use a CQRS pattern instead of a traditional REST API. Typically, one might suggest to re-implement the commands/queries to "reduce" changes to the state, however I opted for a different approach. I don't just want to send a big object graph back to the server and have it blindly insert, and I don't want to re-implement logic on the client and server.
My basic "use case" life cycle looks a bit like:
Load a list of data (limited size, not all attributes).
User selects item from list
Client requests "full" object/view/dto from server
Client stores response in object entity state
User starts modifying data
These changes are stored as "in progress" changes in a different part of state. The system is now responding to the data in the "in progress" part
If another change comes in from server, it doesn't overwrite the "in progress" data, but it does replace what is in the object entity state.
If required, UI shows that the underlying data has changed / is different to what user has entered / whatever.
User clicks on the "perform action" button, or otherwise triggers a command to be sent to server
server performs command. Any errors are returned, or success
server notifies client that change was successful, the client clears the "in progress" information
server notifies client that Entity X has been updated, client re-requests entity X and puts it into the object entity state. This notification is sent to all connected clients, so they can all behave appropriately.

How To Use Flux Stores

Most examples of Flux use a todo or chat example. In all those examples, the data set you are storing is somewhat small and and be kept locally so not exactly sure if my planned use of stores falls in line with the flux "way".
The way I intend to use stores are somewhat like ORM repositories. A way to access data in multiple ways and persist data to the data service, whatever that might be.
Lets say I am building a project management system. I would probably have methods like these for data retrieval:
getIssueById
getIssuesByProject
getIssuesByAssignedUser
getIssueComments
getIssueCommentById
etc...
I would also have methods like this for persisting data to the data service:
addIssue
updateIssue
removeIssue
addIssueComment
etc...
The one main thing I would not do is locally store any issue data (and for that matter most store data that related to a data store). Most of the data is important to have fresh because maybe the issue status has updated since I last retrieved that issue. All my data retrieval method would probably always make an API requests to the the latest data.
Is this against the flux "way"? Are there any issue with going about flux in this way?
I wouldn't get too hung up on the term "store". You need create application state in some way if you want your components to render something. If you need to clear that state every time a different request is made, no problem. Here's how things would flow with getIssueById(), as an example:
component calls store.getIssueById(id)
returns empty object since issue isn't in store's cache
the store calls action.fetchIssue(id)
component renders empty state
server responds with issue data and calls action.receiveIssue(data)
store caches that data and dispatches a change event
component responds to event by calling store.getIssueById(id)
the issue data is returned
component renders data
Persisting changes would be similar, with only the most recent server response being held in the store.
user interaction in component triggers action.updateIssue(modifiedIssue)
store handles action, sending changes to server
server responds with updated issue and calls action.receiveIssue(data)
...and so on with the last 4 steps from above.
As you can see, it's not really about modeling your data, just controlling how it comes and goes.

Meteor make user defined HTML or SVG reactive

In my multi-user meteor application design I want to enable users to be able to create and store their own reactive dashboards to visualize data that they own within the applications database. For example, a user may have an object in the database representing the real-time disk usage of a processor. I want them to be able to submit/store html say to represent a dynamic dial as their dashboard. Another user may have their own weather station and want a dashboard with a last 24 hours thermometer and pressure trend. When they call up one of their stored dashboards it is rendered and would update as their data changes.
Can anyone point to example code or explain how to accomplish this? Or, authoritatively explain why it cannot be done in the framework. I have come across various dynamic API's but nothing that fits the bill. I.e. UI.renderWithData and Meteor._def_template.
The following topic was very similar to my questions and it got me a good start and I figured it out and posted and answer there.
How to make meteor evaluate user defined template text

How to load all data on client

I'm working on an asp.net website with telerik controls. Im using multiple conditional grids (Show data based on selection in a grid.)
Every time I do new selection it is kinda slow (I'm using ajax call). Is it possible to preload all data to the client and then instantly show it to user.
I mean, is there any simple way of doing so?
There is a good chance that the slowness comes from the amount of data being rendered on your page. Keep in mind that AJAX still goes through the entire life-cycle of the page; the savings come from not having to render the entire page, just the updated parts.
Are your AJAX settings correctly updating the controls, or do you have a massive 'pnlAllControls' updating 'pnlAllControls'?
For example -- if you have Grid1, Grid2, Grid3; and Grid1 updates (Grid2, Grid3) while Grid2 updates only (Grid3), you should set your AJAX accordingly.
If your controls are getting data from the server, it does not make sense to cache the data on the client. I am not sure how much control you have over configuring them [controls].
You can store/cache data on server side instead (e.g. Cache, Session etc.). The data retrieval from there should be fast unless you send tons of data back and forth. But, caching data (on either client or server) should only be considered if the amount is 1)predictable and 2)relatively small.
Another technique to consider is paging/sorting on the server side. From my experience, you can get a real performance boost using just this.
There is no simple answer to your question. It all depends on data volume, security requirements. Moreover, your controls may not be able to pull data from the client-side.

Architecture that displays messages (like downtime) in application

I'm thinking of a architectural way of displaying messages in our application (Flex-Asp.NET-SqlServer), mostly messages that announce for instance a downtime.
Currently I was thinking of creating a table FlexMessage that holds the name of a message (based on that name I now where to put in Flex) and the value (the message itself). As a result however, someone will have to create these messages and also delete them when they are no longer valid. So, thinking further, I thought of creating messages having a startdate and enddate, so an interval in which they need to be displayed. Like this, someone could login to the management part and create a message that needs to be displayed from a certain date until a certain date.
I could also hardcode it in the Flex Application, but that would mean putting a new build online (of the swf) each time something changes with a certain message. No good idea I guess.
Is there a better way for this that I haven't thought about?
One way to do this is to place your messages in an RSS feed, then read that feed from the Flex application.
There is an example of how to do this here: http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=23819

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