Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Scalability
As shown in the architecture diagram, horizontal scaling is used for both the
Web tier and the Application tier. Most of the components in the architecture are
decoupled and hence if the user base is increased, we can scale up by adding extra
nodes. We can establish linear scalability of the solution by using a performance
benchmarking exercise. This can enable us to increase the capacity of the system by
increasing 'x' number of Liferay application servers, web servers, or database servers.
Performance
The reference architecture divides the load of the system to multiple tiers. A static
resource's requests can be served by the Web tier directly. Also, the Web tier is load
balanced using the Hardware Load Balancer. So, the load on each web server is
also controlled. Similarly, all application requests will be served by the clustered
Application Server tier. The Application Server connects with the Database tier which
is again clustered to ensure the load is distributed. The reference architecture ensures
that the architecture of the solution is robust enough for delivering high performance.
High availability and fault tolerance
The reference architecture ensures that the most important tiers of the solutions are
clustered and load balanced to ensure that the system is highly available and fault
tolerant. As shown in the diagram, the Web tier, Application tier, and Database tier
are clustered, which means that if any nodes from these tiers go down, the system
will still respond to user requests.
Security
The reference architecture places Firewall in front of the Hardware Load Balancer,
which ensures that all the security threats are filtered. Depending upon the security
needs, it is advisable to set up a firewall between each tier as well. So for example,
the Web tier can access the Application tier, but the opposite can be prevented.
Depending upon the project need, the architecture supports configuring
SSL-based access.
