Performance Tuning Guide - EMC Community Network

Maximizing Process Throughput
Chapter 3
This chapter contains information on the following topics:
• Understanding workflow throughput, page 25
• Assessing activity creation rate, page 26
• Assessing activity completion rate, page 27
• Understanding activity completion, page 27
• Increasing workflow threads and adding Content Servers, page 28
• Configuring the workflow agent (polling), page 29
• Avoiding manual bottlenecks, page 32
• Sample workflow agent configurations, page 32
Understanding workflow throughput
Process Builder defines the automatic and manual activities comprising your business process. The
frequency with which these activities complete determines your overall throughput. The following
items impact process activity throughput:
• process activity creation rate
• database capacity
• number of Content Servers (workflow agents) processing activities in a work queue
• number of workflow threads for each Content Server
• TaskSpace performance
• process activity completion rate.
When a workflow instance creates an activity, the Content Server workflow engine adds a work item
to a workflow queue in the database (Figure 6, page 26). Each Content Server in the system writes
to the same workflow queue. The workflow agent for each Content Server then queries (polls) the
database for work assignments from the common queue and adds the work items to workflow
threads for the Java Method Server (JMS) to process. Drawing work assignments from the common
workflow queue balances activity completion load across all workflow agents and Content Servers in
the system, even though some Content Servers generate more activities than others. Understanding
activity completion, page 27 provides details related to workflow agent processing.
EMC Documentum xCP 1.0 Performance Tuning Guide 25