Micro-Batch Processing

Micro-batch processing is a technique where you include more than one record in a single service request. By including multiple records in a request instead of issuing separate requests for each record, you can significantly improve performance when processing a large collection of records through a service. Spectrumâ„¢ Technology Platform supports micro-batch processing for REST and SOAP web services as well for the Client SDK.

Micro-Batch Size

There is no limit to the number of records you can include in a request, but in general you will see the best performance when sending between 50 and 100 records in a micro-batch. We recommend that you test micro-batches of various sizes to determine the optimal micro-batch size for your environment. Keep in mind that in some cases you may get multiple records in the response for each input record. For example, if you are performing address validation and include 10 addresses in the micro-batch, and each address matches to two possible validated addresses, you would get 20 records in the response, not just 10.

Use caution when using both micro-batches and multiple threads for requests to Spectrumâ„¢ Technology Platform. Multiple threads can overwhelm the system if each thread's micro-batch size is too large.

Using a Record ID

You may find it helpful to assign an ID to each record in a micro-batch so that you can correlate the records in the request with the records returned in the response. Use user fields to do this. For information about user fields, see The REST Interface.

Micro-Batch Processing in REST

To perform micro-batch processing with a REST web service, include two or more records as XML or JSON in the body of the request and send the request using the POST method. For more information about sending a POST request to a Spectrumâ„¢ Technology Platform web service, see JSON POST Request and XML POST Request.

For example, this request includes two records as XML in the body of the request:

POST http://spectrum.example.com:8080/rest/ValidateAddressPOST/results.xml HTTP/1.1
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Content-Type: application/xml
Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46YWRtaW4=
Content-Length: 533
Host: config813vm0:8080
Connection: Keep-Alive
User-Agent: Apache-HttpClient/4.1.1 (java 1.5)

<ValidateAddressPOSTRequest xmlns:svc="http://www.pb.com/spectrum/services/ValidateAddressPOST">
    <svc:Input>
       <svc:Row>
          <svc:AddressLine1>3001 Summer</svc:AddressLine1>
          <svc:City>Stamford</svc:City>
          <svc:StateProvince>CT</svc:StateProvince>
       </svc:Row>
       <svc:Row>
          <svc:AddressLine1>33 west monroe</svc:AddressLine1>
          <svc:City>Chicago</svc:City>
          <svc:StateProvince>IL</svc:StateProvince>
       </svc:Row>
    </svc:Input>
</ValidateAddressPOSTRequest>
Note: Services do not have POST support enabled by default. To perform micro-batch processing with these services you must enable POST support. For more information, see Adding POST Support to a REST Web Service.