Heap Tuning for Large NetKernel Instances Part 1

I’m writing this post to document information that I learned whilst developing the new NetKernel enterprise L1 representation cache (released today!). Knowledge of how to tune large Java instances is readily available but because NetKernel uses a cache as an integral part of it’s operation and usually this takes up a significant majority of the heap space of a running system this effects the conventional wisdom. So this article summarizes and augments this information with tips and details for tuning large NetKernel instances.
Published Jan 25, 2013  6 min read   netkernel · caching · optimisation
 

What Is NetKernel?

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you will wake up at your desk and believe what you want to believe. You take the red pill, you will stay in Wonderland, and we show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Homage to one of the best movies ever. The situation is the same. Are you ready to know what NetKernel is?
Published Dec 24, 2012  1 min read   fun
 

NetKernel Protocol Scaling Demonstration

A demo showing how the NetKernel NKP Protocol can scale. It shows a server running in the cloud with a large number of concurrent clients connecting.
Published Dec 22, 2012  1 min read   netkernel protocol · netkernel · optimisation
 

Cut to the Chase

“Cut to the chase” is something you’re only likely to hear me say if I’m enduring some kind of Dickensian wordfest drawn out from the changing of a single bit of information. However in this case I’m not the actor but rather it’s a new architectural endpoint for NetKernel that can keep your web apps on track and up-to-date. Let me explain. Whilst working on the recent representation cache update I noticed that the standard pattern of issuing AJAX requests from the browser was causing a problem.
Published Dec 20, 2012  3 min read   netkernel · architecture · optimisation
 

New Enterprise Representation Cache

Last week we had a get together with representatives of some of our key partners in Brussels. There, amongst other things, I demonstrated a key new technology that I’ve been working on for the last couple of months. This is an all new enterprise grade representation cache. The NetKernel representation cache is a mechanism for storing the responses from endpoints with the aim of eliminating duplicate computation. This is made possible because every computation is uniquely identified with a combination of resource identifier and request scope.
Published Dec 13, 2012  6 min read   netkernel · caching
 

Dynamic Grammars

Last week I received a request for advice on an interesting problem from Grégoire Colbert. He’s given me permission to share his request and I hope to share with you the solution. Let’s imagine that I have a constantly evolving OWL file of living species. I want NetKernel to read this OWL resource, and allow the user to get a representation for each entry in the OWL file : > /birds/sparrow > /fishes/tuna The difficulty is that when NetKernel starts, I (as a programmer) don’t have any idea of what the OWL file will contain, and so I cannot write a static grammar with /birds/sparrow and /fishes/tuna.
Published Sep 28, 2012  5 min read   netkernel
 

Mindmap Of NetKernel Universe

As part of our ongoing efforts to at least provide crampons if not materially reduce the learning curve required to reach the epiphany of Mt NetKernel I want to present our latest efforts with a visual representation of the structure of knowledge within the NetKernel documentation. It is a mindmap; a visual map of the structure of the documentation contained in the core books. It is dynamically generated and clicking on the nodes takes you straight to the actual page within the documentation.
Published Aug 24, 2012  2 min read   netkernel
 

REST and ROC

Brad Jones has his fingers on so many pulses that I imagine him beavering away in his leguminous clinic. So when he said to me last week that my last post would really help people familiar with REST to see what ROC was about it made me think. I realised that the aim was valid but that it wasn’t really well addressed despite Brad’s enthusiasm. So of course I better do something about that!
Published Jul 3, 2012  5 min read   resource oriented computing · rest
 

ROC Concept Maps

Listening to the people I’ve spoken to this week then a picture may not be worth a thousand words. But those folks tend to prefer the command line over the GUI. If you’re in that camp you know where the source code to NetKernel is and you’ve probably read it. This post is for the rest. Following on from Essence of ROC I’ve decided to do a series of concept maps of the ROC principles.
Published Jun 27, 2012  6 min read   resource oriented computing
 

Scratching an Itch

Some of you may know that recently I’ve been really digging into the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology of self organisation. Thanks to Tom Geudens for putting me on that track! I’m not going to bang on obsessively about it as it seems that can be a common tendency, suffice to say I found good geeky tools to use and so far so good it really seems to work. The one takeaway point to me is this: if you can get written down and out of your head all the thoughts and ideas of what needs to be done both long and short term then these thoughts don’t keep springing into your head at inopportune times.
Published Jun 20, 2012  4 min read   fun · comb9
 

Essence of ROC

You might well have expected to see this confusing graphic1 to be from the NetKernel page on 1060research.com given the way we appear to be simultaneously teasing visitors with the promise of refreshing cool water of IT nirvana whilst blasting them with either technobable or mind twisting concepts (depending upon your level on cynicism.) This can act as a barrier to all but the persistent. I’ve recently spoken with quite a few people who have persevered and have told me their story, so in this entry I wanted to just reset things a bit and build up the story of what Resource Oriented Computing (ROC) is and why it’s worth the effort to understand.
Published May 25, 2012  4 min read   netkernel · resource oriented computing
 

NetKernel Protocol Load Balancer

Over the last few months more and more folks have been pushing NetKernel in enterprise environments where multiple servers are required either for anticipated load scaling or for reliability and fail-over. My standard answer has been to create a NetKernel load balancer instance by pairing a NetKernel Protocol (NKP) server up with a set of NetKernel Protocol clients talking to set of NetKernel instances. Then put a simple algorithm in the middle to relay the requests to the appropriate place.
Published Mar 9, 2012  4 min read   netkernel protocol