Are there any best practices/guidelines for the different types of thread tasks within Workflow's Admin Console?

replied on June 30, 2016

Unless directed by Tech Support, the values shouldn't be changed. Increasing the number of task threads may result in an increase in the resources used by the Workflow server (CPU and Memory).

Is there a problem you're trying to address or just curiosity?

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replied on June 30, 2016

Hi Miruna,

There is currently no issue to address, the user simply wanted some sort of concrete documentation or best practice guidelines in regards to the Task Threads.

Thanks!

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replied on June 30, 2016

Hi Miruna,

Are there any standard settings that can be suggested to the user?

Thanks!

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replied on June 30, 2016

The default values are the standard (4 per CPU for each task type). In general, all the options in the Advanced Server Settings dialog are there in case we need to tweak them in response to a support case without needing a hotfix. We haven't had to change the task thread settings for anybody so far.

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replied on June 30, 2016

HI Miruna,

Thanks for the quick reply, I will forward this information to our user. I appreciate your help!

Thank You

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replied on June 3, 2021

Hi Miruna,

With default task threads settings its observed that CPU utilization is high. i would imagine in that case reducing the task thread numbers should reduce the cpu utilization and possible impacts other than workflow processing taking longer time?

High CPU utilization observed for high number of documents business processing on workflow server.

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View 3 previous replies

replied on June 3, 2021

Reducing the number of threads will likely increase processing time. Without actually looking into why the CPU utilization is high, it's impossible to conclude that reducing the number of threads would mitigate the CPU utilization problem.

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replied on June 4, 2021

Hi Miruna,

We have observed that when there are huge volume of documents (almost 20k)) pushed into repository it triggers workflow instances that are configured on creation event. When instances grows all running parallel speed to execute activity and workflow reduces and also CPU utilization is high till all workflow instances compete processing. Once Processing is compete CPU utilization again comes down.

This behaviour is not observed when workflow instances are less for less number of documents and execution of activities and workflow is faster and no CPU utilization issue.

I were thinking if reducing threads and or increasing number of processor will help in this scenario.

Tried looking for hardware planning document for Laserfiche workflow but no luck there. if you can direct me right direction for best practices would be helpful. Thanks.

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replied on June 4, 2021

Increasing the number of processor cores/vCPUs is likely the best action, as more cores will increase the number of parallel task executions and generally help with any CPU bottlenecks. As Miruna implied, I would not recommend changing advanced Workflow settings like task threads.

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replied on June 8, 2021

Thanks Samuel for the response, surely will try to increase processor cores and observe the results.

I though suspect one thing, CPU utilization which is 100% high for whole duration it takes say 6/7 hrs for 10000 workflows running on the server/. Increasing number of processor (say double) will it reduce the span of 100% CPU utilization to 3 hrs or will it be like reducing actually CPU utilization to 50/60% for 6 hrs.

Just wondering if you come across any such behaviour observed on any such instances?

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replied on June 8, 2021

Hi Sonali,

The CPU usage profile of Workflow highly depends on what you're having it do. For example, many Workflow activities that trigger actions in a repository, such as Rename Entry or Assign Metadata, are not very CPU intensive on Workflow Server itself. For these, Workflow is mostly waiting to hear back from Laserfiche Server that the work is done. If you have many concurrent workflows of this type running, it's entirely possible to be thread-limited without maxing out actual CPU utilization.

Other types of activities such as Update Word Document or Fill Out PDF Form perform CPU-intensive work on the Workflow Server instance itself and are more likely to max out CPU utilization. Because Script activities run on the Workflow Server and can contain whatever instructions you specify, we often hear that they fall into this CPU-intensive category. If you're running Script activities that may be CPU-intensive, I recommend investigating if there are ways to make your code more efficient as well.

To summarize all of the above - because Workflow performance profiles can vary so much depending on the mix of activities that are running, as well as additional uncertainty from custom code performance in Scripts, we can't provide a definitive answer to your question.

With that said, I would guess that if you are maxing out CPU utilization at 100% now, it means you are running CPU-intensive activities and/or Scripts, and with more cores will still see 100% CPU utilization but for a shorter time as it will work through the queue faster. Can't make any promises though. Please do write back with your results once you've rerun your tests more cores for Workflow.

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replied on June 9, 2021

thanks Samuel for the detailed insights really appreciate the response. will share our findings once additional cores added in. thanks.

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Are there any best practices/guidelines for the different types of thread tasks within Workflow's Admin Console?

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