Scalability

Scalability with Blueworx Voice Response

Blueworx Voice Response provides a highly scalable system, whichever programming environment you use. You can increase scalability adding extra client nodes as installation traffic grows.

Blueworx Voice Response applications can be stored centrally in all programming environments and shared across multiple systems:

The basic system includes processing for 12 telephony channels. Additional channels are available in increments of 30 (E1) or 24 (T1), with up to 480 lines on one system or thousands of lines on multiple systems.
In CCXML and VoiceXML environments with WebSphere Application Server, SSI is not supported. However, as all applications are hosted on the Web server, this is the area that must be scalable. IBM WebSphere Application Server is very scalable for Web applications, and can be used for as many standalone Blueworx Voice Response systems running VoiceXML as are required.
Java environments support SSI for the voice segments, although not for the runtime applications.
Single system image (SSI) with redundant database server allows better scalability with state table applications.
Multiple SSI nodes can be deployed.
Multiple IBM web servers can be used with load balancing using WebSphere Network Dispatcher.

Scalable CCXML and VoiceXML configurations
All CCXML and VoiceXML applications are stored centrally on a Web or application server. Blueworx Voice Response does not hold any of these applications and therefore does not require any of its own shared application features. The two key technology features that are frequently required are speech recognition and text-to-speech. To allow these to be run from VoiceXML, the Java and VoiceXML environment is also required. This environment allows CCXML or VoiceXML applications to be run on the same system as Blueworx Voice Response or on other systems that support a Java Virtual Machine (JVM).
Scalable Java configurations
All Java applications are stored centrally on a separate Java-enabled system, and are not stored in Blueworx Voice Response. The Java and VoiceXML environment layer runs in a Java Virtual Machine and has native code on different operating systems to integrate with the underlying Blueworx Voice Response products. Voice response beans run on top of this environment layer. Java also makes use of many of the features of the underlying Blueworx Voice Response system, including speech technologies.
What is a single system image (SSI)?
You can use a local area network to connect a cluster of Blueworx Voice Response systems. All the systems can then share all the application data in the cluster (such as state tables and custom servers) and all the voice data (such as voice segments and voice messages). When the systems are connected in this way, you can install a voice application on one system in the cluster, and make it available to all the systems. This means that as your business grows, you can add more systems with little additional work.The cluster of Blueworx Voice Response systems is known as a single system image (SSI). This section tells you what you should consider when you plan to create a single system image.
Planning a single system image
When you plan your single system image, think about: AIX login account, telephony network, configuring the nodes, 3270 sessions, and AIX locale definitions.
Migrating from a stand-alone system to a single system image
If you want to migrate an existing Blueworx Voice Response system to a single system image, note that you can restore the data from only one Blueworx Voice Response system to a single system image. This is because most of the database is shared, so it would get overwritten if you attempted to restore on more than one node of the single system image.
Custom servers in a single system image
This section lists the custom servers that are supplied with Blueworx Voice Response, and shows to what extent these custom servers observe the guidelines outlined in the Blueworx Voice Response for AIX: Custom Servers information.

Parent topic: Planning to install Blueworx Voice Response