IS import agents

The IS import agents must be activated to allow federation. (They are disabled by default.) Normally, three import agents are created for each object store, but you can specify as few as one or as many as five. Increasing or decreasing the number of IS Import Agents enables you to optimize system performance.

More IS import agents can improve throughput but use more system and network resources. However, too many IS import agents could potentially flood the Content Engine with too much database activity, thus reducing actual throughput. Fewer IS import agents require fewer system resources but might not be able to keep up with the flow of catalog data.

To enable or change the number of Image Services Import Agents per object store on the Content Engine server

  1. Launch Enterprise Manager.
  2. At the logon screen, type the appropriate user name and password. When you click OK, Enterprise Manager window opens.
  3. To change the number of IS Import Agents, right-click the Enterprise Manager (Domain) icon or open the Sites folder and right-click a Site icon.
  4. Click Properties on the popup menu.
  5. When the Properties menu displays, select the IS Import Agent tab.
  6. Ensure that the Enable Dispatcher box is selected. This box must be selected to start the import agents and allow federation.
  7. Enter a value for the Dispatcher Wait Interval. This is the number of seconds that the dispatcher will wait before looking for work. Valid settings range from 5 to 600 seconds.
  8. In Number of Import Agents, type the new number of agents, from 1 to 32767. The default is 3.

    You can also adjust the other values on the Import Agent tab to tune the performance of the Content Federation Services for Image Services system.

    No Work Delay (ms): The default of 2000 milliseconds is the equivalent of 2 seconds. The No Work Delay is the amount of time the IS Import Agent process will wait before checking for data from the Image Services system if there was no data the last time it checked. If document committal is relatively slow, you could increase this setting to 3000 (3 seconds) or more.

    Batch Delay (ms): The default of 1000 milliseconds is the equivalent of 1 second. The Batch Delay is the amount of time the system will wait to check for data from the Image Services system if there was data the last time it checked. If documents are being committed in high numbers, you could lower this setting to 500 (half a second) or less.

    Documents Per Batch: The default is 10 documents per batch. If the documents are relatively large or are being committed in low numbers, you can reduce this number. If the documents are small or are being committed in high numbers you can increase this number. You can adjust the number from 1 to 500.

    Retry Count: The default is 50 retries. If the IS Import agent is unable to import a batch, it will retry the import as many times as you specify here. Valid settings range from 1 to 10000.

  9. Click OK to save your changes and close the Properties window. The new values automatically take effect. Any batch currently being processed is completed with the old settings. The Import Agent then processes subsequent batches with the new values.

Starting and restarting IS Import Agents

Each Image Services server that is configured as a Fixed Content Device must have at least one Content Engine object store mapped to it before the IS import agents are started. If no object store is mapped to any Image Services fixed content device, the Content Federation Services service will exit.

The IS import agents do not have to be restarted when modifications to properties or document class mappings have been made. However, if you choose to stop or restart the import agents to manage the work load on the Content Engine server, clear or check the Enable Dispatcher box on the IS Import Agent tab of the Enterprise Manager Properties window as described previously.