Cache Management for Siebel Product Configurator

This topic is part of About Siebel Product Configurator Caching.

Administrators use the Cache Administration view in the Administration - Product screen to manage mappings of customizable products or bundled promotions with remote Siebel Product Configurators. Cache management allows administrators to route customizable products (whether stand-alone products or products that are components of a bundled promotion) to remote Siebel Product Configurators.

When a user starts a configuration session, Siebel Product Configurator loads the requested customizable product into memory. You can specify a cache (server or component) to serve requests for frequently requested customizable products to improve response times. The specified cache loads the customizable products that are mapped to it into memory before any user requests are received.

You can also specify a time interval so that the specified cache updates the customizable products it holds at regular intervals. This reduces the possibility that a user request requires the retrieval of data from the database and the loading of a revised customizable product. To specify the time interval, you set values for the following parameters on the eProdCfgObjMgr component. For more information about these parameters, see Parameters for Configuring Siebel Product Configurator Caching.

• Server Session Loop Sleep Time (alias ServerSessionLoopSleepTime)

• Product Configurator - Cache Engine Objects (alias eProdCfgCacheEngineObjects)

Requests for other customizable products that are not mapped to a specific cache are served by a cache that has the setting Explicit Product Mappings Only disabled.

The following procedure describes how to configure product caching by mapping a product to a cache that has the setting Explicit Product Mappings Only enabled.

Routing Customizable Products Using the Cache Administration View

In the Cache Administration view, administrators can define routing of customizable products within a bundled promotion to remote instances of the Siebel Product Configurator Object Manager. The Cache Administration view and related repository objects are nonextensible objects and cannot be customized by customers. See also Configuring Session Pooling for Siebel Product Configurator.

The Product applet in the Cache Administration view contains additional fields: Promotion Name, Component Description, and Promotion Rule Id. For a given product, the administrator can specify one or multiple associated bundled promotions using the Promotion Relationship pick applet.

Note: To use this functionality, you must run the RepositoryUpgrade utility and update the Siebel repository with database schema changes, including those in the Cache Administration view. For more information, see Siebel Database Upgrade Guide and Siebel CRM Update Guide and Release Notes on My Oracle Support for your Siebel CRM 21.x Update release.

To configure product caching

1. Navigate to the Administration - Product screen, then the Cache Administration view.

   The Cache Administration view appears.

2. In the Cache applet, select a cache.

   Note: Only one cache can be active at a time.

3. In the Cache Type field, select a value as described in the following list:

   • Server. Select Server as the cache type to route configuration requests to the Siebel Servers associated with the cache.

   • Component. Select Component as the cache type to route configuration requests to the components associated with the cache. These components can span multiple Siebel Servers depending on where components are active.

     For component cache-based routing, you must generate the lbconfig.txt file by executing the generate lbconfig command in Server Manager. Configure the Application Object Manager parameter VirtualHostsFile to point to this lbconfig.txt file. For example: VirtualHostsFile = SIEBSRVR_ROOT\ADMIN\lbconfig.txt

     If you select Component as the cache type, then you must set the same value for the component parameter Enable internal load balancing (alias EnableVirtualHosts) on both the Siebel Application Object Manager and the eProdCfgObjMgr component. For example, if EnableVirtualHosts is set to True on the Siebel Application Object Manager component, then it must also be set to True on the eProdCfgObjMgr component.

4. In the Components applet, specify a Siebel Server name or a component name to associate with the cache that you selected in the preceding steps. For example, if you set Cache Type equal to Server, then you enter the name of a Siebel Server. If you set Cache Type equal to Component, then you enter the name of a component.

   Note: Component names must be unique in the Siebel Enterprise. Multiple eProdCfgObjMgr components can run on a single server. To create multiple remote eProdCfgObjMgr components, administrators can copy eProdCfgObjMgr and name the copy eProdCfgObjMgr2, for example.

5. If you want a server cache or component cache to only serve products that are mapped to that server cache or component cache, then select Explicit Product Mappings Only.

6. In the Product applet, select the customizable product(s) or promotion(s) that you want to associate with the component that you selected in the preceding steps.

   Note: When a promotion is selected, all of its components are added to the Products applet, with prepopulated values for the Promotion Name, Component Description, and Promotion Rule Id fields, in order to uniquely identify a specific component of the promotion. Product or system administrators can also route different components under a promotion to different cache components or servers. To do this, add a product and then select a promotion for it by specifying the Promotion Name in the Promotion Relationship applet, along with the appropriate promotion rule ID. The Promotion Relationship pick applet only displays the promotions that the product is a part of.

7. In the Cache applet, click Validate.

   The application validates that the Siebel Server or component names that you select are valid for the cache type that you specified in the preceding steps.

8. If the configuration that you created validates correctly, then click Release to enable the cache that you selected cache instances of the products that are mapped to it.

   The file ecfgserver.txt is created or updated when the cache is released.

Related Topics

Configuring Session Pooling for Siebel Product Configurator