blog_13032018

Tips to guarantee performance in your inRiver Connector

Situation

When starting a new connector development project, a lot of thought goes into –
  • Understanding the PIM data model requirements
  • Understanding the input data formats requirements / output data formats requirements
  • Anticipating the future requirements and incorporating the required flexibility
  • Understanding the requirements of the external system and so on

Challenge

However, in most scenarios, the performance expectations for the connector are not considered till the final production / go live time. This can result in unexpected delays and schedule slippages if the connector is not able to meet the performance requirements. Given that even a very small PIM implementation may deal with thousands of products it is guaranteed to have performance challenges if the performance requirements are not planned from the beginning and also tested during User Acceptance Testing (UAT).

Recommendations

Following are some of the recommendations that any connector development team should consider:
  • A good understanding of the volume of records to be processed (number of SKUs, etc.,) before starting the project
  • A good test plan to verify that the connector can meet the performance requirements
  • Separate DEV and QA environments to simulate large volume of data and test the performance without affecting the other teams and overall schedule
  • In addition following the tips below is also useful:
    • If the output is required in XML format, using in built XML class libraries to generate and validate the XML can improve performance
    • Replacing for loops with LinQ queries can also improve performance
    • If files are output to FTP server, assessing the performance of the FTP server and making sure it is not a bottleneck is also a necessity
    • Last but not the least, it may also be necessary to deploy the connector from the same geography as where the PIM instance is setup

Final word…

Planning for the performance of the connector from the beginning will make sure there are no surprises during the UAT / Go Live phase and guarantee that there are no cost overruns in the PIM implementation.
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