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Argos in WAN Environments
Wide Area Networks (WANs) are becoming increasingly prevalent as a cheap, easy way for distributed companies to
share information, centralize management and aggregate mundane tasks. Questions often arise regarding the use of Sepialine
software in WAN configurations. As a true client/server application, the Argos Cost Recovery Platform offers several basic
schematics for companies with remote locations. This page describes several WAN scenarios and discusses the relative pros
and cons of each.
1. One Database, Multiple Remote Print Servers
| Pros |
Cons |
| Centralized management |
Potential latency |
| Single project list |
| Easy database backup & maintenance |
2. One Database, HTTP Middle Tier
By introducing a middle tier between the branch office and the database, we can achieve better performance and reduced traffic.
The Sepialine Web service acts as an HTTP middle tier and, in addition to simplifying network traffic, the Sepialine middle
tier includes on-board caching. This allows the server at the branch office to hold a copy of important data such as billing
codes, users, etc.
| Pros |
Cons |
| High performance |
Requires additional server software installation |
| Reduced traffic due to middle tier caching |
Requires IIS and .NET framework |
3. Multiple Databases, Multiple Remote Print Servers
In this scenario each office maintains its own Sepialine database, independent from other offices. This arrangement is robust, in
that it's unaffected by network outages. However, multiple database require special handling in order to report, analyze or otherwise
consume the data in an aggregated form.
| Pros |
Cons |
| Fault tolerance |
Multiple project lists |
| High performance |
Requires multiple reports |
| Minimal WAN traffic |
4. One Database, Centralized Print Server(s)
For companies that locate print servers offsite from branch offices, you can benefit from the centralized database scenarios 1 & 2,
above.
| Pros |
Cons |
| Centralized management |
Vulnerable to WAN failure |
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