Administration Considerations

As an administrator, you need to determine whether an Interface Repository is required. Not all systems require it. If an Interface Repository is required, you need to create and populate a repository database. The repository database is created and populated using the idl2ir command.

If an Interface Repository is required, you need to answer the following questions:

You can configure the system to have one or more Interface Repository servers. At least one Interface Repository server needs to be configured if any of the clients use Dynamic Invocation Interface (DII) or ActiveX.

There are two reasons to have more than one server: performance and fault tolerance. From a performance point of view, the number of Interface Repository servers is a function of the number of DII and ActiveX clients. From a fault tolerance point of view, the number of Interface Repository servers needed is determined by the configuration of the system, and the degree of failure protection required.

In systems with more then one Interface Repository server, you must decide whether to have replicated databases, shared databases, or a combination of the two. There are advantages and disadvantages to each configuration. Replicated Interface Repository databases allow for local file access that can potentially increase performance.

The main problem with replicated databases is updating them. All the databases must be identical and this requires the starting and stopping of Interface Repository servers. Having the Interface Repository database mounted and shared eliminates this problem, but this has performance implications and introduces a single point of failure. A combination of the two alternatives is also possible.