Introduction to shared memory for Text Server data

Shared memory functionality improves memory performance; memory consumption is reduced and performance is increased. However, this implementation requires some administration that in-process memory functionality does not: Users must manage memory mapped files when new text key-value pairs are added to the Text Server XML files. When this occurs, all Text Server related memory backing store files must be removed. Administrators running on a Linux platform must manage semaphore usage. The memory backing store files represent the persistent cache for the shared memory contents. As long as the physical backing store file exists, the file contents are used for the Text Server shared memory data on that machine. The initial XML text files are only read and parsed by the very first Teamcenter server process, to populate the shared memory cache. Subsequent processes use the shared memory technique. Updating the XML files through installation or customization requires a refresh of the shared memory cache, which is done by removing the backing store files (its persistent representation). Shared memory functionality consumes semaphores. Each time a process stores a shared memory map file in a new location, a new semaphore is created. When a process reuses a location for a shared memory map file, the same semaphores are reused.