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Using Siebel Configurator Caching

Siebel Configurator supports several types of caching of customizable product information, to optimize response time for configuration-session users. Caching options include:

• Caching in memory (default behavior, described below)
• Caching in the CFGCache directory on the Siebel File System (default behavior, described below)

  The CFGCache cache directory maintains a history of the customizable products that have been loaded into the memory cache.

• Caching in memory using Snapshot Mode (optional but highly recommended caching model that works with the other caching mechanisms)

  Snapshot Mode adds more memory caches for customizable products and for business services associated with configuration sessions. For details, see Configuring Snapshot Mode Caching for Configurator.

NOTE:  The memory resources for your Siebel Configurator server machine must be sufficient to support your caching requirements.

Siebel product administration and class administration provides the ability to refresh all cached data or to selectively refresh cached customizable product data.

Default Caching Behavior for Configurator

The default caching behavior for Siebel Configurator is as follows:

• When a user starts a configuration session, Siebel Configurator looks to see if the customizable product is cached in memory.
• If the customizable product is not cached in memory, Configurator looks in the CFGCache directory for the product.
• If the customizable product is not in the CFGCache cache, it is loaded from the Siebel Database. The product is added to the memory cache and to CFGCache.
• Thereafter, when a configuration session starts, the customizable product is loaded from the memory cache or CFGCache.
• Before loading the customizable product from CFGCache, the system checks the Siebel Database to make sure each item in the product is the current version.
• If the cached product has changed in the database, the current version of the item is loaded from the database. This ensures that the most recent version of a customizable product and its contents are loaded.
• When the product administrator releases a new version of a customizable product, the changes are written to the Siebel Database. The memory cache and the CFGCache directory are not updated with the changes until the next configuration session is requested for the customizable product.