3.1.2 Benefits of a Distributed Application

The benefits of a distributed application include:

• Scalability—to increase the load that an application can sustain:
  • Place extra server processes in a group.
  • Add machines to the application and redistribute the groups across the machines.
  • Replicate a group onto other machines within the application and use load balancing.
  • Segment a database and use data-dependent routing to reach the groups dealing with these separate database segments (the Oracle Tuxedo ATMI system).

With the Oracle Tuxedo CORBA system, you can use factory-based routing to distribute the processing of a particular CORBA interface across multiple server groups and, if desired, across multiple machines. This feature allows you to distribute the processing load, which can prevent the processing bottlenecks that occur when concurrent, resource-intensive applications compete for the available CPU, memory, disk I/O, and network resources. For an example of using factory-based routing, see Scaling with Factory-based Routing.

For more information about Oracle Tuxedo CORBA scalability features, see Scaling, Distributing, and Tuning CORBA Applications.

• Ease of Development and Maintenance—the separation of the business application logic into services or components that communicate through well-defined messages or interfaces allows both development and maintenance to be similarly separated and thereby simplified.
• Reliability—when multiple machines are in use and one fails, the remainder can continue operation. Similarly, when multiple server processes are within a group and one fails, the others are available to perform work. Finally, if a machine must fail, but there are multiple machines within the application, these other machines can be used to handle the load.
• Coordination of Autonomous Actions—if you have separate applications, you can coordinate autonomous actions, as a single logical unit of work, among applications. Autonomous actions are actions that involve multiple server groups and multiple resource manager interfaces.