Sites and Replicated Repositories
Assume your company is split over two sites (for example, London and San Diego). The AssetWise Information Integrity Server, database, and repositories all exist in San Diego. Users in London who connect to the AssetWise database cannot work as fast as users in San Diego, because whenever media files are either viewed, launched, checked out or in, and so on, they are transferred across the WAN between the two sites. The speed of the file transfer is totally dependent on the speed of the link between the two sites.
For this reason, AssetWise is designed to allow multiple sites to log into the same database, but have separate repositories in each site. These repositories can then be set up to replicate each other. This results in users in London now being able to add and retrieve electronic files from their local repository. Only very small amounts of metadata from the database need to be transferred across the WAN.
Normal Client Connections
AssetWise Director users connect directly to the AssetWise Information Integrity Server. All requests to the database go through the AssetWise Information Integrity Server, so it is always good practice to locate the database server close to the AssetWise Information Integrity Server. When uploading electronic files, the files will go from the end user's computer directly to the storage server, and then be placed into the repository.
AssetWise ALIM Web users connects to the AssetWise ALIM Web Server, which then connects to the AssetWise Information Integrity Server. Therefore all database requests still go through the AssetWise Information Integrity Server, and results are then relayed back to the end user's computer. The main difference relates to the file handling. As the AssetWise ALIM Web Server is acting as the client, all files, whether uploaded or downloaded, will go first to the AssetWise ALIM Web Server. Files will then go from the AssetWise ALIM Web Server to the storage server and into the repository.
The Multi-site Environment
Unless the architecture is set up correctly, introducing a multi-site environment may actually degrade performance rather than improve it.
If there are only AssetWise Director users, you only need to set up a second Storage Service at the new site. Users will still connect AssetWise Director to the original AssetWise Information Integrity Server, but files will be added and retrieved from the local Storage Service.
Realistically, AssetWise ALIM Web is the interface of choice. Because the AssetWise ALIM Web Server is a client of the AssetWise Information Integrity Server, the AssetWise ALIM Web Server needs to be close to the storage server. Therefore, as well as a Storage Service at the new site, a second AssetWise ALIM Web Server should also be installed. So the end user now connects to the local AssetWise ALIM Web Server, which in turn connects across the WAN to the AssetWise Information Integrity Server. When files are added and retrieved, the files transfer from the client computer to the local AssetWise ALIM Web Server, and on to the local storage server.
