A Scaled N4 XD service is a scalable decking service that offloads decking for vessel discharges and gate receivals for pre-advised containers from the XPS server to a cluster of dedicated XPS clients (located on a dedicated host or VM). These dedicated XPS clients are called N4 XD servers, because they receive vessel discharge decking requests from the N4 node where the N4 Mobile hatch clerk discharge occurred. The XD service also handles decking requests for gate receivals for pre-advised containers.You can also send a decking request
A Scaled N4 XD service:
Handles decking for vessel discharges, eliminating the need for XPS to do vessel discharge decking.
Handles gate receivals, including gate flips
Handles decking for gate receivals (pre-advised containers only).
Uses direct, synchronous messaging between N4 and the N4 XD servers using Bento messages.
Uses load balancing to allow for concurrent XD requests, when more than one N4 XD server is available, and to enable decking request failover to the XPS server.
Increases the capacity of XPS, leading to higher performance, improved scalability of XPS, and a more resilient N4 TOS.
Enables you to use larger, more generic allocation groups and ranges to take full advantage of Expert Decking.
These improvements are built upon existing functionality. Therefore, the existing XPS functionality for vessel discharge and pre-advised containers decking is unchanged and available for sites that do not want to use N4 XD servers.
As terminal size and throughput increase, more demand is placed on the XPS server. A significant source of added stress is decking requests handled by XPS. Implementing a Scaled N4 XD service frees up bandwidth on the XPS server for other tasks, thereby improving XPS performance.
The Scaled N4 XD service is available for conventional, semi-automated, and automated terminals.
If your terminal has the following, you should consider implementing a Scaled N4 XD service:
4M+ TEU throughput (for conventional terminals)
2M+ TEU throughput (for automated and semi-automated terminals)
Yards with broad allocation groups covering multiple blocks
Yards with high utilization gate
Automated and semi-automated terminals especially benefit from this. These terminals often use end loading ASCs to distribute their containers across the ASC modules. This is to avoid bottlenecks at the transfer zones, but leads to Expert Decking strategies that cover much of the yard. By using a Scaled N4 XD service, you can implement decking strategies that use a wider search area than currently possible, enabling you to take full advantage of Expert Decking. In addition, a Scaled N4 XD service improves XPS resilience when faced with high message volumes encountered in fully and semi-automated terminals.
For more information, see:
How does a Scaled N4 XD service work? (on page 1)
How many N4 XD servers do I deploy? (on page 1)
Configure the N4 XD server(s) (on page 1)
Use N4 XD Service for Gate receival (on page 1)
Monitoring Scaled N4 XD service decking requests (on page 1)
Rolling back N4 vessel, rail, and gate move processing to XPS (on page 1)
Prerequisites:
Expert Decking, N4 Mobile, ECN4 licenses
Notes:
We do not recommend using a Scaled N4 XD service for conventional terminals with less than 2M TEU, since there is no measurable benefit to compensate for the added complexity, especially when XPS performance is fine.
A Scaled N4 XD service does not replace the ECN4 XD server, which is still available to handle decking requests from ECN4 and should continue to be deployed in addition to the N4 XD servers(s).