Recovery of a Disabled Process Restart versus Reopen the Realm

When the FTL server disables an application process, the application can recover in one of two ways: either create a new objects and resume operation, or exit and restart.

The appropriate course of action depends on business factors and program design factors:

• Process restart cost. The program’s start sequence might be time-consuming, or use resources heavily. For example, a start sequence might load a large data set into process memory, or establish several database connections. Seek to avoid that restart cost by re-using the existing context and state.
• Downtime cost. Business factors might require minimal interruption of an application process.
• Parallel activities. An application might do some activities which do not require TIBCO FTL communication. It could be appropriate for those activities to continue non-stop operation while the program creates a new realm object. For example, a program could control machinery and also send sensor data to other applications. In this example the controller thread must not stop, even if sensor messages temporarily stop flowing.
• Simplicity. Unless any of the preceding factors prohibit it, in many cases the simplest and fastest action is to exit and restart the program.
• Fresh start. An application’s state could become stale while communications are suspended. Returning to a valid state might be more complicated or time-consuming than starting fresh.

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