Problems with scalability of flex apps using XML as a data structure?

Question

I'm currently developing the backend of a flex application using Zend_Amf_Server and the decision has been made to to move a lot of the textual assets from the db and into some xml config files. The application is being rolled out to a 10k+ intranet user base, so in my eyes, the less db interaction going on the better, however one of the devs has mentioned that the client should be aware of the risks of a static XML approach for a system that could have many concurrent users.

Does anyone have any experience or links/whitepapers to any scalability issues they have faced whilst developing a flex app for many concurrent users and if xml as a data source was a cause for concern? Its just seems odd to me that reading a 50kbs worth of xml files once per user on startup is a lot worse than multiple amf calls to a db from a scalability perspective.

Answer 1

wouldn't a better solution be to keep the amf calls, which are going to be much smaller than xml files, and use some kind of caching on the server side to prevent so many database calls.

http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2005/12/mysql-database-caching-in-php/