Introduction 1-5
Like other forced conversions, fragment-only conversions take place upfront, when the content item is checked into the Content Server.
1.8 Caching and Querying
Dynamic Converter includes a conversion and caching strategy that significantly improves the overall performance of your intranet or external web site. This Element
allows Content Server to serve up dynamically created web pages much more quickly than was possible in earlier versions.
While the conversion and caching enhancements are built into the application, there are several configuration options that you can set in order to fine-tune Dynamic
Converter:
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Caching of Timestamps
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Metadata Changes
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Timestamp Checking Frequency
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Cache Interval
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Cache Size
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Cache Expiration Period All these configuration options can be set in the Conversion and Caching
Optimizations section of the Dynamic Converter Configuration page see Conversion
and Caching Optimizations on page A-7.
1.8.1 Caching of Timestamps
Every time a user clicks the HTML dynamic conversion link on the search results page or content information page, three files are queried in the Content Server
database: the source document, the conversion template, and the layout file if applicable. The database queries confirm that the dynamically converted file is the
most recent, but these queries are done even when an up-to-date conversion is available.
Dynamic Converter version 6.2 and higher use a new method of verifying the revision of content items and conversion templates without querying the database each time.
Instead, the time stamps of the converted content items are stored in the servers memory-based cache. Future conversion requests can then compare these cached time
stamps with the time stamps of the content item to be converted without querying the database. When combined with the upfront conversion Element see
Upfront Conversions
on page 1-3, Dynamic Converter becomes much more efficient in its revision and conversion queries. Using time stamps, the caching and querying
mechanism detects the new revisions of content items in the Content Server, because with each new revision a new file is created with a new time stamp.
1.8.2 Metadata Changes
If you or your users make metadata-only changes to a content item, neither a new file nor a new time stamp is created, and the changes will go undetected. To address this
problem, you must make sure that all metadata changes are identified by Dynamic Converter. You can do this by enabling the Reconvert when metadata is updated
option on the Dynamic Converter Configuration page see
Conversion and Caching Optimizations
on page A-7. This option forces the Content Server to update the time stamp of the source content items after a metadata update. With this option enabled,
the time stamps of all web-viewable formats are updated to reflect the metadata
1-6 Administrators Guide for Dynamic Converter
change that occurred for the corresponding source content item. The updated time stamp, as a result, will be recognized by Dynamic Converter, and the content item,
with metadata updates, will be reconverted.
Database Method of Checking You can choose to use the database method of checking whether the content items
metadata has been updated. You set this option on the Dynamic Converter Configuration page see
Conversion and Caching Optimizations on page A-7. With
this configuration option enabled, content item updates continue to signal timestamp changes in the converted files, but the new caching and querying method is not used
to determine if the content items are up to date. Instead, the Content Server database is queried for this information. You might use this method, for example, if you are
experiencing problems with the optimized query Element or you are troubleshooting a related issue.
1.8.3 Timestamp Checking Frequency
