Performance Tuning Guide - EMC Community Network

Maximizing Process Throughput
Increasing workflow threads and adding
Content Servers
Adding workflow threads increases system capacity to complete activities. Adding workflow threads
also creates additional demand on the database and Content Server resources, which can affect
TaskSpace performance or the performance of any other application using the same infrastructure
(Increasing workflow threads on the TaskSpace Content Server, page 29).
Iteratively modify the number of system workflow threads to assess the impact on user response
time, activity throughput, and system resource consumption. More workflow threads result in
greater automatic activity throughput up to the point where system resource consumption degrades
performance. Scale up slowly to understand when resource limitations begin to show (Content Server
CPU and database CPU utilization). The following provides some guidelines:
• A single CPU Content Server host cannot process 10,000 activities per hour, regardless of how
it is configured.
• Be cautious if CPU or memory utilization exceeds 80% for any tier in the system.
• Do not configure more than three threads per CPU core.
If throughput requirements exceed the capacity that a single Content Server can provide, add more
Content Servers. Each Content Server instance (and associated workflow agent) nominally supports
15 concurrent workflow threads. Deploy one Content Server instance for every multiple of 15
concurrent workflow threads required by your solution. Avoid more than 25 workflow threads for
any Content Server.
Note: If your throughput requirements exceed the capacity of the database, adding additional
Content Servers does not help. To determine the capacity of your database, monitor your database
CPU. If there is no idle CPU, your database hardware is probably undersized.
When adding Content Servers, balance the load of concurrent workflow threads across each new
Content Server and initially configure each new Content Server with fewer than the nominal
maximum number of concurrent workflow threads (15). For example, if you have 15 workflow
threads on one Content Server and you introduce another Content Server with the same configuration,
lower the number of threads to 10 each (20 threads total), then scale up the threads slowly to the
required number.
Each new Content Server includes a workflow agent that can poll the database, which can slow down
the database. Configuring the workflow agent (polling), page 29 provides more information on
polling intervals and on-demand processing.
Maximizing throughput across all workflow instances
The Content Server workflow agent maximizes automated activity throughput by processing
activities, from any active workflow, in the order in which they are written to the work queue (first in,
first out). Sometimes, users do not see manual activities in their inbox until the automatic activities of
many other workflows complete, even though there are only a couple automatic activities preceding
the manual activity on which they act (Figure 7, page 29).
28 EMC Documentum xCP 1.0 Performance Tuning Guide