As part of the Open Systems Performance Improvement (OSPI) project, there was a requirement to look into a new method of storing Faxes so that the application InConcert would have access to the files within an Oracle database, as opposed to being stored as flat files on disk.  The main requirement was to reduce the average time from receipt of a fax to completion of action by 75%, and the SLA from 1 hour to 15 minutes. Current timings suggest the average timing is 30 minutes.

We were employed to develop a method that could easily integrate with the current system and be seamless to the end users, apart from a vastly improved response time. The current system used TCL scripts to access flat files and make them available to the application, but where they were being stored could easily mean fetching of files would take minutes, as the main UNIX directory would store approximately 60000 files.

The solution we came up with, was to store the file in an Oracle database, and use a Pro*C program to load and fetch files as and when required. The current TCL code was then modified to use the new Oracle method and after 2-months of running, all the files on disk were removed. The next day, file fetches and loads were taking seconds and an 80% overall improvement in response times was achieved.