PERFORMANCE


Improving Agent Manager performance
The Agent Manager controls when agents run on a server. Every time an agent runs, it uses server resources. To control when scheduled and event-triggered agents run, you specify settings in the Server document and in the NOTES.INI file. Customizing when agents run may conserve server resources, but it may also delay when agents run.

Controlling how often Agent Manager runs agents

These NOTES.INI settings affect how often the Agent Manager executes agents. In general, the more frequently agents run, the sooner they perform their tasks. Running agents more frequently, however, may increase demand on server resources and adversely affect overall system performance.

AMgr_DocUpdateAgentMinInterval

This setting specifies the minimum elapsed time, in minutes, between executions of the same document update-triggered agent. This lets you control the time interval between executions of a given agent. Default is 30 minutes. A longer interval can result in the agent running less often, reducing server demand. If document update events are infrequent, you can reduce the delay.

Note Setting this and other Agent Manager variables to zero does not completely eliminate the delay; a built-in delay will always exist.

AMgr_DocUpdateEventDelay

This setting specifies the delay time, in minutes, the Agent Manager schedules a document update-triggered agent after a document update event. The default is 5 minutes. The delay time ensures the agent runs no more often than the specified interval, regardless of how frequently document update events occur. When the agent executes, it will also process all additional events (if any) that occurred during the interval. A longer interval results in the agent running less often, thus reducing demand for server time. If document update events are infrequent, however, you can reduce the delay to ensure the agent runs soon after the event occurs.

AMgr_NewMailAgentMinInterval

This setting specifies the minimum elapsed time, in minutes, between execution of the same new mail-triggered agent. The default is 0 (no interval between executions). Similar to AMgr_DocUpdateAgentMinInterval, entering an interval can result in the agent running less frequently.

AMgr_NewMailEventDelay

This setting specifies the time (in minutes) that the Agent Manager delays before scheduling a new mail-triggered agent after new mail is delivered. The default is 1 minute. Similar to AMgr_DocUpdateEventDelay, the delay time ensures the agent runs no more often than the specified interval. When the agent executes, it will also process all additional events (if any) that occurred during the interval. A longer interval results in the agent running less often, thus reducing demand for server time. If document update events are infrequent, however, you can reduce the delay to ensure the agent runs soon after the event occurs.

DominoAsynchronizeAgents

This setting specifies whether Web agents triggered by browser clients can run at the same time (asynchronously). The default is zero (only one agent can run at a time). Set this to 1 to allow multiple agents to run simultaneously. This can result in faster execution of agents. However, a high number of agents executing at the same time can slow overall system performance. Open the Server document you want to change, and click the Internet Protocols - Domino Web Engine tab. In the Web Agents section, enable or disable the "Run Web agents concurrently?" option. For "Web agent time-out (in seconds)," the default is 0 (no time-outs).

Controlling how quickly the Agent Manager queues agents

The Agent Manager periodically checks to see if it has any new agents that it needs to schedule. These NOTES.INI settings control how quickly an agent gets into the schedule queue.

AMgr_SchedulingInterval

This setting specifies a delay (in minutes) between running of the Agent Manager's scheduler. Valid values are 1 minute to 60 minutes. The default value is 1 minute.

AMgr_UntriggeredMailInterval

This setting specifies a delay (in minutes) between running of the Agent Manager's check for untriggered mail. Valid values are 1 minute to 1440 minutes (the number of minutes in a day). The default value is 60 minutes.

Controlling when the Agent Manager runs agents

When you create or modify an event-triggered agent, the Agent Manager schedules it to run immediately. This ensures the agent can quickly process new documents. These NOTES.INI settings let you specify a time interval between subsequent running of the agent. This can prevent repeated running of the agent -- for example, because of a rapid series of triggering events.

Scheduling an agent to run immediately means that it will execute as soon as possible. If there are many agents ahead of it, it may not be executed right away.

These settings control when the Agent Manager runs agents.


Monitoring the load on the Agent Manager

If your server attempts to schedule agents at a rate faster than the Agent Manager can run them, the message "AMgr: Agent scheduling is paused" appears on the console. The Agent Manager will not schedule any new agents until the server processes some agents that are already scheduled. Therefore, the running of new agents may be slightly delayed.

Controlling how many concurrent agents are running

You can relieve a heavily loaded Agent Manager by allowing agents to run concurrently. To do this, modify the "Max concurrent agents" field in the Server Tasks/Agent Manager section of the Server document. Values greater than 1 allow more than one agent to run at the same time. Valid values are 1 through 10. Default values are 1 for daytime and 2 for nighttime.

An Agent Executive runs each concurrent agent. To see a snapshot of the Agent Manager status, including the number of Agent Executives currently running, enter the command tell amgr status at the server console. To see a list of scheduled agents, enter the command tell amgr schedule at the server console.

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