When using Strategy Mobile, creating and storing caches (both on server and on device) is of tremendous help when trying to optimize performance and achieving your performance SLAs. While a lot of the concepts concerning Mobile caches are similar to caching within Strategy in general, there are also a few unique things about it that may be of interest to an administrator.
1. Mobile caches are in binary format.
While the cache monitor (especially for older versions of Strategy Developer) may suggest that Mobile caches are of a Flash type, they are actually of the Binary type. This is fairly efficient serialized binary that lends itself well to consumption on Mobile devices and operating systems.
2. Mobile caches are incremental in nature.
While older versions of Strategy generated single binaries per mobile report/document/dashboard, recent versions generate a bunch of incremental binaries. These are typically split as -
This makes it very convenient to transfer the binaries incrementally over the network, as well as render it incrementally on the device, thereby optimizing execution time performance tremendously.
3. Mobile binaries are compressed.
These incremental mobile binaries are further compressed for even faster transmission over the network, and is particularly helpful when trying to download data over slow networks. In some cases, compression ratios of 60%-70% and even more are achieved.
4. Device caches are a must for optimal performance.
Mobile caches, as mentioned in the points above, when transmitted to the device, get saved as device caches on the disk. This is extremely helpful, since device caches can render directly from device memory with no need for interaction over the network or server and hence are the most optimal method of running dashboards on mobile devices. They even cater to offline use cases pretty well.
5. Pre-loading device caches is possible.
One can preload mobile caches and save them as device caches by one of many methods including, subscriptions, pre-caching, or background refresh. Feel free to read about each of these in more detail to be able to use the right method for your caching strategy and needs.
6. Mobile caching can be governed.
Mobile caching can be governed both on the server, as well as on the Client. One can turn caching ON/OFF at project or document level, decide on which formats to turn caching on for, decide on memory to be allocated for saving caches, cache expiration policies, cache update subscriptions, etc. on the server. One can also control deleting device caches from device on app close, app logout, etc. if need be. One can customize mobile caching as per need. Please refer to the product manuals and documentation for more details on this topic.
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