Architecting And Performance Testing For Network Educational Resources Management System 2.0

This paper rests on the research background which is NERMS (Network Education Resources System). The main target of NERMS is to organize and manage the various network educational resources.Through the use of data mining, intelligent search, automated information delivery, and work flow technology, NERMS enables users to get personality and intelligence experience, and easily share the educational resources.NERMS 1.0 version has already been published, and as a network education management system, it basically achieves its goals. However, with maintenancing the NERMS 1.0 version, its performance is not good. After analysis, we found that the architecture of some sub-module structure is inconsistent. And the NERMS 1.0 version is a heavyweight framework based on J2EE's EJB. EJB complexity of the technology and it has a few poor performance problems. These two aspects of the system will affect the maintenance and development of the NERMS, and its new function's rapidly developing. This leads to the subject of the architecting of NERMS 2.0 version.This paper includes three parts: Firstly, It introduced the related definitions, model and methodologies of software architecture, the aims and principles of architecting, the analysis of J2EE architecture and Java EE 5 framework, and also introduced the concepts of Lightweight Java.In general terms, software architecting is a key factor in reducing cost, improving quality, timely delivery against schedule, and delivery against requirements. Architecting addresses system qualities and drives consensus. Architecting supports the planning process, drives architectural integrity and helps manage complexity. Architecting provides a basis for reuse reduces maintenance costs and supports impact analysis.Lightweight Java is referring to two things: simplified programming models and more responsive containers. Lightweight Java is about removing the unnecessary complexities and constraints associated with the traditional J2EE API. It is also about reducing application deployment time, which is critical in supporting development best practices such as frequent unittesting.The most important concept of Lightweitht Java is Inversion of control, Based on POJOs programming and transparent persistence.Secondly, by comparing the related framework technologies, developing tools, Application Servers and database systems, a suitable and better solution for the architecture of NERMS 2.0 which is JSP 1.2/Servlet 2.3+POJO+Hibernate2+Eclipse 3.2+Tomcat 5.0.28+DB2 8.1 is given. The general architecture of NERMS 2.0 version is given, and it used "Rational4+1 View Models" to describe the architecture of NERMS 2.0 version in detail. In the Process View, it introduced the J2EE Patterns in the Presentation Tier, Business Tier and Persistence Tier.It chose four contrast parameters for comparation: the components of tech, the special mechanisms, and basic function, and development costs. In the Presentation Tier, Java Server Faces, Struts1, and Struts2, and JSP/Servlet technology are compared. In the Business Tier, stateful SessionBean 2.X, stateful SessionBean 3.0, and SpringFramework, and POJOs are compared.In the Persistence Tier, Bean-Managed Persistence EntityBeans, Container-Managed Persistence EntityBeans, and Java Persistence API in theJava EE 5, and Hibernate technology are compared. In the developing tools, the Eclipse 3.2, WSAD 4, and WSAD 5.1 are compared. In the Application Servers, the JBoss 4.0, WAS 5.1, and Tomcat 5.0.28, and Resin 2.1.1.6 are compared. In the database, DB2 8.1, Oracle 10g and SQLServer2005 are compared.The Rational4+1 View Models contained: Logical View, Development View, Process View, Physical View and Use case View. In the Logical View, there are five modules:resource module, user module,system management module, communication module and common module.In the Development View, the NERMS 2.0 version is divided into five tiers: Client Tier,Presentation Tier,Business Tier,Persistence Tier,Resource Tier. In the Process View, we use Presentation Tier's Front Controller Pattern, Business Tier's Value Object Pattern, and Persistence Tier's Data Access Object Pattern.through the Physical View described NERMS 2.0 version's 5 tier architecture, program packages, component, and related pages how to deploy on the Tomcat Server, as well as how to link IBM DB2 database.The Use case View described the resource module, user module, system management module, and communicate module, and common module in the NERMS 2.0 version. The Use case View is special, and it runs through the other's views.Finally, it studied the software performance parameters, Application areas, the performance testing method at first, and use LoadRunner 7.8 to run the performance testing. The result shows the new architecture has a good performance.Performance test is the system level test. With testing the performance parameters, the performance test aimed at early ensure and eliminate the performance bottlenecks of software architecture.Performance testing process is the simplification of the Performance Test General Model which includes: testing preparation, testing plans, design and development of the testing, implementation and management of the testing and testing result analysis. The performance testing ran Concurrency Testing and Load Testing for the capacity validation. With analysis the testing results which included the forms of the results and the charts coming from the LoadRunner's Analysis, NERMS 2.0 has a good performance in the 100 concurrent users testing and can be continued with some pressure load.The Research and Implementation of the NERMS 2.0 architecturing not only means that a new software system which has the same architecture is produced, but also represents a successful practice in the software developing process.