Data recording; improving runtime performance
Two options are provided which can improve runtime performance regarding the recording of user behavior data.
Recording user behavior data
- An option that stores the data in cache but does not persist that data to the database. This is the default behavior for the recently viewed categories and products, but can be configured for any user behavior data recording.
- An option to set the maximum size of user behavior data that is stored in cache before that data is persisted to the database.
Areas for performance consideration
Dialog activities are available
only in the Professional and Enterprise editions of WebSphere Commerce.
| Area | Performance consideration |
|---|---|
| Activity and behavior rules | All information that is related to the processing of an activity during the storefront is put into the marketing cache. All information includes definition of the behavior rules that need to match against URLs and controller commands. |
| Recording of user data | Performed in batch mode. Only once there is an activity is the data that is related to that activity recorded. For example, only once a target has a behavior rule that requires a customer to have browsed the Furniture category five times is the customers browsing of the Furniture recorded. The browsing of other categories is not recorded in this instance. |
| Optional recording of user data | For high amounts of data. For example, for a recently browsed list, the data is not recorded in the database. |
| Detecting events | For controller commands, the command execution trigger functionality is used. The command execution trigger is only enabled once a rule is set up that is interested in the successful exit of that controller command. For behavior rules, all the rule definitions are in the marketing cache. |
| Accessing user data | A customer's online behavior user data is in a user data cache. While a customer is browsing the site, any access to their user data is from the cache that avoids any database access. |
| Customer is in Segment trigger | Processing time of large dialog activities can be configured to run off peak. Segment evaluation can be expensive and result in many customers being run through a dialog activity. |
| Aggregate statistics | Views, clicks, and customers reach an element are accumulated in memory and are periodically persisted to the database that avoids a database write on every page visit. |