https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faqen-USTelligent Community 12https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faqFri, 02 Jun 2023 21:27:55 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Elly Menghttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsCurrent Revision posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Elly Meng on 6/2/2023 9:27:55 PM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <p>Table of Contents:</p> <ul> <li><a href="#How%20can%20automatic%20checkpointing%20be%20disabled?">How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</a></li> <li><a href="#Automatic%20checkpoints%20are%20negatively%20impacting%20site%20performance">Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20checkpoints%20are%20scheduled%20manually%20(to%20avoid%20automatic%20checkpoints%20during%20business%20hours)%20and%20the%20number%20of%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints%20is%20much%20less%20than%20the%20number%20of%20checkpoints%20that%20would%20occur%20with%20automatic%20checkpointing,%20will%20the%20time%20to%20checkpoint%20increase%20greatly?">If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</a></li> <li><a href="#What%20is%20the%20recommended%20interval%20for%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Will%20the%20environment%20be%20completely%20unusable%20during%20the%20(fewer)%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Would%20adding%20execution%20and%20analytics%20engines%20to%20the%20environment%20diminish%20the%20effects%20of%20checkpoints%20for%20users?">Would&nbsp;adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20adding%20more%20Process%20Execution%20engines%20will%20not%20minimize%20user%20impact%20due%20to%20Execution%20engine%20checkpoints,%20what%20will?">If adding more execution and analytics engines will not minimize user impact due to engine checkpoints, what will?</a></li> </ul> <p><strong><a id="How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?"></a>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</strong></p> <p>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by specifying the following properties and values in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.time=30 hours</li> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.replay=30 hours</li> </ul> <p>By configuring these settings, it makes it possible to avoid triggering checkpoints during business hours. This way, manually scheduled checkpoints (via cron job or scheduled task) can be configured to initiate checkpoints during off-hours, as explained in the&nbsp;Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. <strong>Note: </strong>If the manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will still run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong><a id="Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance"></a>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</strong></p> <p>When automatic checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted during business hours, the effects may temporarily reduce system performance for self-managed, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any further requests until the checkpoint is complete. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be temporarily unresponsive which may cause user requests to be delayed or time out.</p> <p><strong><a id="If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours) and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?"></a>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</strong></p> <p>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong><a id="What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</strong></p> <p><span style="color:#000000;">The recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints will vary based on individual business requirements. Failing to regularly checkpoint the engines introduces&nbsp;the risk of longer transaction replay&nbsp;time in the event of engine failure. Having more frequent checkpoints will help manage the amount of time it may take for transactions to replay in this case. In general, it is good practice to checkpoint at least once every 12 hours.&nbsp;<br /></span></p> <p><strong><a id="Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</strong></p> <p>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong><a id="Would adding execution and analytics engines to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?"></a>Would <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Adding_Execution_and_Analytics_Engines.html">adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines</a>&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</strong></p> <p>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would help in this case. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would not be helpful, since any one of the engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is&nbsp;stored in&nbsp;the engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong><a id="If adding more Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?"></a>If adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines will not minimize user impact due to engine checkpoints, what will?</strong></p> <p>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">high availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a high availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine. As a result, if one instance of an engine is checkpointing, the remaining instances of that engine are available to serve user requests.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: checkpoint, engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/23Fri, 02 Jun 2023 21:26:49 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Elly Menghttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 23 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Elly Meng on 6/2/2023 9:26:49 PM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <h2>Table of Contents</h2> <ul> <li><a href="#How%20can%20automatic%20checkpointing%20be%20disabled?">How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</a></li> <li><a href="#Automatic%20checkpoints%20are%20negatively%20impacting%20site%20performance">Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20checkpoints%20are%20scheduled%20manually%20(to%20avoid%20automatic%20checkpoints%20during%20business%20hours)%20and%20the%20number%20of%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints%20is%20much%20less%20than%20the%20number%20of%20checkpoints%20that%20would%20occur%20with%20automatic%20checkpointing,%20will%20the%20time%20to%20checkpoint%20increase%20greatly?">If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</a></li> <li><a href="#What%20is%20the%20recommended%20interval%20for%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Will%20the%20environment%20be%20completely%20unusable%20during%20the%20(fewer)%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Would%20adding%20execution%20and%20analytics%20engines%20to%20the%20environment%20diminish%20the%20effects%20of%20checkpoints%20for%20users?">Would&nbsp;adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20adding%20more%20Process%20Execution%20engines%20will%20not%20minimize%20user%20impact%20due%20to%20Execution%20engine%20checkpoints,%20what%20will?">If adding more execution and analytics engines will not minimize user impact due to engine checkpoints, what will?</a></li> </ul> <p><strong><a id="How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?"></a>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</strong></p> <p>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by specifying the following properties and values in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.time=30 hours</li> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.replay=30 hours</li> </ul> <p>By configuring these settings, it makes it possible to avoid triggering checkpoints during business hours. This way, manually scheduled checkpoints (via cron job or scheduled task) can be configured to initiate checkpoints during off-hours, as explained in the&nbsp;Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. <strong>Note: </strong>If the manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will still run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong><a id="Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance"></a>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</strong></p> <p>When automatic checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted during business hours, the effects may temporarily reduce system performance for self-managed, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any further requests until the checkpoint is complete. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be temporarily unresponsive which may cause user requests to be delayed or time out.</p> <p><strong><a id="If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours) and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?"></a>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</strong></p> <p>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong><a id="What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</strong></p> <p><span style="color:#000000;">The recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints will vary based on individual business requirements. Failing to regularly checkpoint the engines introduces&nbsp;the risk of longer transaction replay&nbsp;time in the event of engine failure. Having more frequent checkpoints will help manage the amount of time it may take for transactions to replay in this case. In general, it is good practice to checkpoint at least once every 12 hours.&nbsp;<br /></span></p> <p><strong><a id="Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</strong></p> <p>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong><a id="Would adding execution and analytics engines to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?"></a>Would <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Adding_Execution_and_Analytics_Engines.html">adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines</a>&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</strong></p> <p>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would help in this case. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would not be helpful, since any one of the engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is&nbsp;stored in&nbsp;the engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong><a id="If adding more Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?"></a>If adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines will not minimize user impact due to engine checkpoints, what will?</strong></p> <p>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">high availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a high availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine. As a result, if one instance of an engine is checkpointing, the remaining instances of that engine are available to serve user requests.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: checkpoint, engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/22Fri, 02 Jun 2023 21:26:22 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Elly Menghttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 22 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Elly Meng on 6/2/2023 9:26:22 PM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <h2>Table of Contents:</h2> <ul> <li><a href="#How%20can%20automatic%20checkpointing%20be%20disabled?">How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</a></li> <li><a href="#Automatic%20checkpoints%20are%20negatively%20impacting%20site%20performance">Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20checkpoints%20are%20scheduled%20manually%20(to%20avoid%20automatic%20checkpoints%20during%20business%20hours)%20and%20the%20number%20of%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints%20is%20much%20less%20than%20the%20number%20of%20checkpoints%20that%20would%20occur%20with%20automatic%20checkpointing,%20will%20the%20time%20to%20checkpoint%20increase%20greatly?">If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</a></li> <li><a href="#What%20is%20the%20recommended%20interval%20for%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Will%20the%20environment%20be%20completely%20unusable%20during%20the%20(fewer)%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Would%20adding%20execution%20and%20analytics%20engines%20to%20the%20environment%20diminish%20the%20effects%20of%20checkpoints%20for%20users?">Would&nbsp;adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20adding%20more%20Process%20Execution%20engines%20will%20not%20minimize%20user%20impact%20due%20to%20Execution%20engine%20checkpoints,%20what%20will?">If adding more execution and analytics engines will not minimize user impact due to engine checkpoints, what will?</a></li> </ul> <p><strong><a id="How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?"></a>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</strong></p> <p>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by specifying the following properties and values in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.time=30 hours</li> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.replay=30 hours</li> </ul> <p>By configuring these settings, it makes it possible to avoid triggering checkpoints during business hours. This way, manually scheduled checkpoints (via cron job or scheduled task) can be configured to initiate checkpoints during off-hours, as explained in the&nbsp;Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. <strong>Note: </strong>If the manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will still run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong><a id="Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance"></a>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</strong></p> <p>When automatic checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted during business hours, the effects may temporarily reduce system performance for self-managed, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any further requests until the checkpoint is complete. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be temporarily unresponsive which may cause user requests to be delayed or time out.</p> <p><strong><a id="If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours) and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?"></a>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</strong></p> <p>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong><a id="What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</strong></p> <p><span style="color:#000000;">The recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints will vary based on individual business requirements. Failing to regularly checkpoint the engines introduces&nbsp;the risk of longer transaction replay&nbsp;time in the event of engine failure. Having more frequent checkpoints will help manage the amount of time it may take for transactions to replay in this case. In general, it is good practice to checkpoint at least once every 12 hours.&nbsp;<br /></span></p> <p><strong><a id="Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</strong></p> <p>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong><a id="Would adding execution and analytics engines to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?"></a>Would <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Adding_Execution_and_Analytics_Engines.html">adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines</a>&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</strong></p> <p>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would help in this case. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would not be helpful, since any one of the engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is&nbsp;stored in&nbsp;the engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong><a id="If adding more Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?"></a>If adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines will not minimize user impact due to engine checkpoints, what will?</strong></p> <p>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">high availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a high availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine. As a result, if one instance of an engine is checkpointing, the remaining instances of that engine are available to serve user requests.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: checkpoint, engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/21Fri, 07 Dec 2018 15:11:26 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Jordan Horwathttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 21 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Jordan Horwat on 12/7/2018 3:11:26 PM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <p>Table of Contents:</p> <ul> <li><a href="#How%20can%20automatic%20checkpointing%20be%20disabled?">How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</a></li> <li><a href="#Automatic%20checkpoints%20are%20negatively%20impacting%20site%20performance">Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20checkpoints%20are%20scheduled%20manually%20(to%20avoid%20automatic%20checkpoints%20during%20business%20hours)%20and%20the%20number%20of%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints%20is%20much%20less%20than%20the%20number%20of%20checkpoints%20that%20would%20occur%20with%20automatic%20checkpointing,%20will%20the%20time%20to%20checkpoint%20increase%20greatly?">If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</a></li> <li><a href="#What%20is%20the%20recommended%20interval%20for%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Will%20the%20environment%20be%20completely%20unusable%20during%20the%20(fewer)%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Would%20adding%20execution%20and%20analytics%20engines%20to%20the%20environment%20diminish%20the%20effects%20of%20checkpoints%20for%20users?">Would&nbsp;adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20adding%20more%20Process%20Execution%20engines%20will%20not%20minimize%20user%20impact%20due%20to%20Execution%20engine%20checkpoints,%20what%20will?">If adding more execution and analytics engines will not minimize user impact due to engine checkpoints, what will?</a></li> </ul> <p><strong><a id="How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?"></a>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</strong></p> <p>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by specifying the following properties and values in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.time=30 hours</li> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.replay=30 hours</li> </ul> <p>By configuring these settings, it makes it possible to avoid triggering checkpoints during business hours. This way, manually scheduled checkpoints (via cron job or scheduled task) can be configured to initiate checkpoints during off-hours, as explained in the&nbsp;Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. <strong>Note: </strong>If the manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will still run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong><a id="Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance"></a>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</strong></p> <p>When automatic checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted during business hours, the effects may temporarily reduce system performance for self-managed, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any further requests until the checkpoint is complete. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be temporarily unresponsive which may cause user requests to be delayed or time out.</p> <p><strong><a id="If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours) and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?"></a>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</strong></p> <p>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong><a id="What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</strong></p> <p><span style="color:#000000;">The recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints will vary based on individual business requirements. Failing to regularly checkpoint the engines introduces&nbsp;the risk of longer transaction replay&nbsp;time in the event of engine failure. Having more frequent checkpoints will help manage the amount of time it may take for transactions to replay in this case. In general, it is good practice to checkpoint at least once every 12 hours.&nbsp;<br /></span></p> <p><strong><a id="Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</strong></p> <p>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong><a id="Would adding execution and analytics engines to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?"></a>Would <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Adding_Execution_and_Analytics_Engines.html">adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines</a>&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</strong></p> <p>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would help in this case. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would not be helpful, since any one of the engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is&nbsp;stored in&nbsp;the engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong><a id="If adding more Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?"></a>If adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines will not minimize user impact due to engine checkpoints, what will?</strong></p> <p>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">high availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a high availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine. As a result, if one instance of an engine is checkpointing, the remaining instances of that engine are available to serve user requests.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: checkpoint, engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/20Thu, 30 Aug 2018 02:31:16 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Parmida Borhanihttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 20 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Parmida Borhani on 8/30/2018 2:31:16 AM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <p>Table of Contents:</p> <ul> <li><a href="#How%20can%20automatic%20checkpointing%20be%20disabled?">How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</a></li> <li><a href="#Automatic%20checkpoints%20are%20negatively%20impacting%20site%20performance">Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20checkpoints%20are%20scheduled%20manually%20(to%20avoid%20automatic%20checkpoints%20during%20business%20hours)%20and%20the%20number%20of%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints%20is%20much%20less%20than%20the%20number%20of%20checkpoints%20that%20would%20occur%20with%20automatic%20checkpointing,%20will%20the%20time%20to%20checkpoint%20increase%20greatly?">If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</a></li> <li><a href="#What%20is%20the%20recommended%20interval%20for%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Will%20the%20environment%20be%20completely%20unusable%20during%20the%20(fewer)%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Would%20adding%20execution%20and%20analytics%20engines%20to%20the%20environment%20diminish%20the%20effects%20of%20checkpoints%20for%20users?">Would&nbsp;adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20adding%20more%20Process%20Execution%20engines%20will%20not%20minimize%20user%20impact%20due%20to%20Execution%20engine%20checkpoints,%20what%20will?">If adding more execution and analytics engines will not minimize user impact due to engine checkpoints, what will?</a></li> </ul> <p><strong><a id="How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by specifying the following properties and values in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.time=30 hours</li> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.replay=30 hours</li> </ul> <p>By configuring these settings, it makes it possible to avoid triggering checkpoints during business hours. This way, manually scheduled checkpoints (via cron job or scheduled task) can be configured to initiate checkpoints during off-hours, as explained in the&nbsp;Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. <strong>Note: </strong>If the manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will still run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong><a id="Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</p> <p><strong>A:</strong>&nbsp;When automatic checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted during business hours, the effects may temporarily reduce system performance for on-premise, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any further requests until the checkpoint is complete. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be temporarily unresponsive which may cause user requests to be delayed or time out.</p> <p><strong><a id="If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours) and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong><a id="What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints will vary based on individual business requirements. Failing to regularly checkpoint the engines introduces&nbsp;the risk of longer transaction replay&nbsp;time in the event of engine failure. Having more frequent checkpoints will help manage the amount of time it may take for transactions to replay in this case. In general, it is good practice to checkpoint at least once every 12 hours.&nbsp;<br /></span></p> <p><strong><a id="Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong><a id="Would adding execution and analytics engines to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Would <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Adding_Execution_and_Analytics_Engines.html">adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines</a>&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would help in this case. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would not be helpful, since any one of the engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is&nbsp;stored in&nbsp;the engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong><a id="If adding more Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines will not minimize user impact due to engine checkpoints, what will?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">high availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a high availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine. As a result, if one instance of an engine is checkpointing, the remaining instances of that engine are available to serve user requests.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: checkpoint, engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/19Wed, 29 Aug 2018 20:32:30 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Tom Ryanhttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 19 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Tom Ryan on 8/29/2018 8:32:30 PM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <p>Table of Contents:</p> <ul> <li><a href="#How%20can%20automatic%20checkpointing%20be%20disabled?">How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</a></li> <li><a href="#Automatic%20checkpoints%20are%20negatively%20impacting%20site%20performance">Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20checkpoints%20are%20scheduled%20manually%20(to%20avoid%20automatic%20checkpoints%20during%20business%20hours)%20and%20the%20number%20of%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints%20is%20much%20less%20than%20the%20number%20of%20checkpoints%20that%20would%20occur%20with%20automatic%20checkpointing,%20will%20the%20time%20to%20checkpoint%20increase%20greatly?">If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</a></li> <li><a href="#What%20is%20the%20recommended%20interval%20for%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Will%20the%20environment%20be%20completely%20unusable%20during%20the%20(fewer)%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Would%20adding%20execution%20and%20analytics%20engines%20to%20the%20environment%20diminish%20the%20effects%20of%20checkpoints%20for%20users?">Would&nbsp;adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20adding%20more%20Process%20Execution%20engines%20will%20not%20minimize%20user%20impact%20due%20to%20Execution%20engine%20checkpoints,%20what%20will?">If adding more execution and analytics engines will not minimize user impact due to engine checkpoints, what will?</a></li> </ul> <p><strong><a id="How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by specifying the following properties and values in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.time=30 hours</li> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.replay=30 hours</li> </ul> <p>By configuring these settings, it makes it possible to avoid triggering checkpoints during business hours. This way, manually scheduled checkpoints (via cron job or scheduled task) can be configured to initiate checkpoints during off-hours, as explained in the&nbsp;Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. <strong>Note:&nbsp;</strong>if the manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will still run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong><a id="Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</p> <p><strong>A:</strong>&nbsp;When automatic checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted during business hours, the effects may temporarily reduce system performance for on-premise, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any further requests until the checkpoint is complete. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be temporarily unresponsive which may cause user requests to be delayed or time out.</p> <p><strong><a id="If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours) and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong><a id="What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints will vary based on individual business requirements. Failing to regularly checkpoint the engines introduces&nbsp;the risk of longer transaction replay&nbsp;time in the event of engine failure. Having more frequent checkpoints will help manage the amount of time it may take for transactions to replay in this case. In general, it is good practice to checkpoint at least once every 12 hours.&nbsp;<br /></span></p> <p><strong><a id="Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong><a id="Would adding execution and analytics engines to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Would <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Adding_Execution_and_Analytics_Engines.html">adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines</a>&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would help in this case. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would not be helpful, since any one of the engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is&nbsp;stored in&nbsp;the engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong><a id="If adding more Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines will not minimize user impact due to engine checkpoints, what will?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">high availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a high availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine. As a result, if one instance of an engine is checkpointing, the remaining instances of that engine are available to serve user requests.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/18Wed, 29 Aug 2018 20:28:26 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Tom Ryanhttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 18 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Tom Ryan on 8/29/2018 8:28:26 PM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <p>Table of Contents:</p> <ul> <li><a href="#How%20can%20automatic%20checkpointing%20be%20disabled?">How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</a></li> <li><a href="#Automatic%20checkpoints%20are%20negatively%20impacting%20site%20performance.%20Is%20this%20expected%20behavior?">Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20checkpoints%20are%20scheduled%20manually%20(to%20avoid%20automatic%20checkpoints%20during%20business%20hours)%20and%20the%20number%20of%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints%20is%20much%20less%20than%20the%20number%20of%20checkpoints%20that%20would%20occur%20with%20automatic%20checkpointing,%20will%20the%20time%20to%20checkpoint%20increase%20greatly?">If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</a></li> <li><a href="#What%20is%20the%20recommended%20interval%20for%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Will%20the%20environment%20be%20completely%20unusable%20during%20the%20(fewer)%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Would%20adding%20execution%20and%20analytics%20engines%20to%20the%20environment%20diminish%20the%20effects%20of%20checkpoints%20for%20users?">Would&nbsp;adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20adding%20more%20Process%20Execution%20engines%20will%20not%20minimize%20user%20impact%20due%20to%20Execution%20engine%20checkpoints,%20what%20will?">If adding more execution and analytics engines will not minimize user impact due to engine checkpoints, what will?</a></li> </ul> <p><strong><a id="How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by specifying the following properties and values in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.time=30 hours</li> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.replay=30 hours</li> </ul> <p>By configuring these settings, it makes it possible to avoid triggering checkpoints during business hours. This way, manually scheduled checkpoints (via cron job or scheduled task) can be configured to initiate checkpoints during off-hours, as explained in the&nbsp;Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. <strong>Note:&nbsp;</strong>if the manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will still run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong><a id="Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</p> <p><strong>A:</strong>&nbsp;When automatic checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted during business hours, the effects may temporarily reduce system performance for on-premise, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any further requests until the checkpoint is complete. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be temporarily unresponsive which may cause user requests to be delayed or time out.</p> <p><strong><a id="If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours) and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong><a id="What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints will vary based on individual business requirements. Failing to regularly checkpoint the engines introduces&nbsp;the risk of longer transaction replay&nbsp;time in the event of engine failure. Having more frequent checkpoints will help manage the amount of time it may take for transactions to replay in this case. In general, it is good practice to checkpoint at least once every 12 hours.&nbsp;<br /></span></p> <p><strong><a id="Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong><a id="Would adding execution and analytics engines to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Would <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Adding_Execution_and_Analytics_Engines.html">adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines</a>&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would help in this case. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would not be helpful, since any one of the engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is&nbsp;stored in&nbsp;the engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong><a id="If adding more Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines will not minimize user impact due to engine checkpoints, what will?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">high availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a high availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine. As a result, if one instance of an engine is checkpointing, the remaining instances of that engine are available to serve user requests.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/17Wed, 29 Aug 2018 11:53:16 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Jordan Horwathttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 17 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Jordan Horwat on 8/29/2018 11:53:16 AM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <p>Table of Contents:</p> <ul> <li><a href="#Automatic%20checkpoints%20are%20negatively%20impacting%20site%20performance.%20Is%20this%20expected%20behavior?">Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</a></li> <li><a href="#How%20can%20automatic%20checkpointing%20be%20disabled?">How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20checkpoints%20are%20scheduled%20manually%20(to%20avoid%20automatic%20checkpoints%20during%20business%20hours)%20and%20the%20number%20of%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints%20is%20much%20less%20than%20the%20number%20of%20checkpoints%20that%20would%20occur%20with%20automatic%20checkpointing,%20will%20the%20time%20to%20checkpoint%20increase%20greatly?">If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</a></li> <li><a href="#What%20is%20the%20recommended%20interval%20for%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Will%20the%20environment%20be%20completely%20unusable%20during%20the%20(fewer)%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Would%20adding%20execution%20and%20analytics%20engines%20to%20the%20environment%20diminish%20the%20effects%20of%20checkpoints%20for%20users?">Would&nbsp;adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20adding%20more%20Process%20Execution%20engines%20will%20not%20minimize%20user%20impact%20due%20to%20Execution%20engine%20checkpoints,%20what%20will?">If adding more execution and analytics engines will not minimize user impact due to engine checkpoints, what will?</a></li> </ul> <p><strong><a id="Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</p> <p><strong>A:</strong>&nbsp;When automatic checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted during business hours, the effects may temporarily reduce system performance for on-premise, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any further requests until the checkpoint is complete. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be temporarily unresponsive which may cause user requests to be delayed or time out.</p> <p><strong><a id="How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by specifying the following properties and values in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.time=30 hours</li> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.replay=30 hours</li> </ul> <p>By configuring these settings, it makes it possible to avoid triggering checkpoints during business hours. This way, manually scheduled checkpoints (via cron job or scheduled task) can be configured to initiate checkpoints during off-hours, as explained in the&nbsp;Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. <strong>Note:&nbsp;</strong>if the manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will still run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong><a id="If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours) and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong><a id="What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints will vary based on individual business requirements. In general, it is good practice to checkpoint at least once every 12 hours.&nbsp;Failing to regularly stagger manually scheduled checkpoints introduces&nbsp;the risk of longer transaction replay&nbsp;time in the event of engine failure. Having more frequent checkpoints will help manage the amount of time it may take for transactions to replay in this case.</span></p> <p><strong><a id="Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong><a id="Would adding execution and analytics engines to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Would <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Adding_Execution_and_Analytics_Engines.html">adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines</a>&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would help in this case. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would not be helpful, since any one of the engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is&nbsp;stored in&nbsp;the engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong><a id="If adding more Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines will not minimize user impact due to engine checkpoints, what will?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">high availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a high availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine. As a result, if one instance of an engine is checkpointing, the remaining instances of that engine are available to serve user requests.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/16Wed, 29 Aug 2018 11:52:18 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Jordan Horwathttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 16 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Jordan Horwat on 8/29/2018 11:52:18 AM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <p>Table of Contents:</p> <ul> <li><a href="#Automatic%20checkpoints%20are%20negatively%20impacting%20site%20performance.%20Is%20this%20expected%20behavior?">Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</a></li> <li><a href="#How%20can%20automatic%20checkpointing%20be%20disabled?">How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20checkpoints%20are%20scheduled%20manually%20(to%20avoid%20automatic%20checkpoints%20during%20business%20hours)%20and%20the%20number%20of%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints%20is%20much%20less%20than%20the%20number%20of%20checkpoints%20that%20would%20occur%20with%20automatic%20checkpointing,%20will%20the%20time%20to%20checkpoint%20increase%20greatly?">If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</a></li> <li><a href="#What%20is%20the%20recommended%20interval%20for%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Will%20the%20environment%20be%20completely%20unusable%20during%20the%20(fewer)%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Would%20adding%20execution%20and%20analytics%20engines%20to%20the%20environment%20diminish%20the%20effects%20of%20checkpoints%20for%20users?">Would&nbsp;adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20adding%20more%20Process%20Execution%20engines%20will%20not%20minimize%20user%20impact%20due%20to%20Execution%20engine%20checkpoints,%20what%20will?">If adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?</a></li> </ul> <p><strong><a id="Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</p> <p><strong>A:</strong>&nbsp;When automatic checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted during business hours, the effects may temporarily reduce system performance for on-premise, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any further requests until the checkpoint is complete. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be temporarily unresponsive which may cause user requests to be delayed or time out.</p> <p><strong><a id="How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by specifying the following properties and values in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.time=30 hours</li> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.replay=30 hours</li> </ul> <p>By configuring these settings, it makes it possible to avoid triggering checkpoints during business hours. This way, manually scheduled checkpoints (via cron job or scheduled task) can be configured to initiate checkpoints during off-hours, as explained in the&nbsp;Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. <strong>Note:&nbsp;</strong>if the manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will still run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong><a id="If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours) and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong><a id="What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints will vary based on individual business requirements. In general, it is good practice to checkpoint at least once every 12 hours.&nbsp;Failing to regularly stagger manually scheduled checkpoints introduces&nbsp;the risk of longer transaction replay&nbsp;time in the event of engine failure. Having more frequent checkpoints will help manage the amount of time it may take for transactions to replay in this case.</span></p> <p><strong><a id="Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong><a id="Would adding execution and analytics engines to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Would <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Adding_Execution_and_Analytics_Engines.html">adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines</a>&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would help in this case. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would not be helpful, since any one of the engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is&nbsp;stored in&nbsp;the engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong><a id="If adding more Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">high availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a high availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine. As a result, if one instance of an engine is checkpointing, the remaining instances of that engine are available to serve user requests.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/15Wed, 29 Aug 2018 11:49:39 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Jordan Horwathttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 15 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Jordan Horwat on 8/29/2018 11:49:39 AM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <p>Table of Contents:</p> <ul> <li><a href="#Automatic%20checkpoints%20are%20negatively%20impacting%20site%20performance.%20Is%20this%20expected%20behavior?">Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</a></li> <li><a href="#How%20can%20automatic%20checkpointing%20be%20disabled?">How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20checkpoints%20are%20scheduled%20manually%20(to%20avoid%20automatic%20checkpoints%20during%20business%20hours)%20and%20the%20number%20of%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints%20is%20much%20less%20than%20the%20number%20of%20checkpoints%20that%20would%20occur%20with%20automatic%20checkpointing,%20will%20the%20time%20to%20checkpoint%20increase%20greatly?">If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</a></li> <li><a href="#What%20is%20the%20recommended%20interval%20for%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Will%20the%20environment%20be%20completely%20unusable%20during%20the%20(fewer)%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Would%20adding%20execution%20and%20analytics%20engines%20to%20the%20environment%20diminish%20the%20effects%20of%20checkpoints%20for%20users?">Would&nbsp;adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20adding%20more%20Process%20Execution%20engines%20will%20not%20minimize%20user%20impact%20due%20to%20Execution%20engine%20checkpoints,%20what%20will?">If adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?</a></li> </ul> <p><strong><a id="Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</p> <p><strong>A:</strong>&nbsp;When automatic checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted during business hours, the effects may temporarily reduce system performance for on-premise, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any further requests until the checkpoint is complete. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be temporarily unresponsive which may cause user requests to be delayed or time out.</p> <p><strong><a id="How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by specifying the following properties and values in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.time=30 hours</li> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.replay=30 hours</li> </ul> <p>By configuring these settings, it makes it possible to avoid triggering checkpoints during business hours. This way, manually scheduled checkpoints (via cron job or scheduled task) can be configured to initiate checkpoints during off-hours, as explained in the&nbsp;Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. <strong>Note:&nbsp;</strong>if the manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will still run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong><a id="If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours) and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong><a id="What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints will vary based on individual business requirements. In general, it is good practice to checkpoint at least once every 12 hours.&nbsp;Failing to regularly stagger manually scheduled checkpoints introduces&nbsp;the risk of longer transaction replay&nbsp;time in the event of engine failure. Having more frequent checkpoints will help manage the amount of time it may take for transactions to replay in this case.</span></p> <p><strong><a id="Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong><a id="Would adding execution and analytics engines to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Would <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Adding_Execution_and_Analytics_Engines.html">adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines</a>&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would help in this case. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would not be helpful, since any one of the engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is&nbsp;stored in&nbsp;the engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong><a id="If adding more Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">high availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a high availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine. As a result, if one instance of an engine is checkpointing, the remaining instances of that engine are available to serve user requests.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/14Fri, 24 Aug 2018 17:43:28 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Jordan Horwathttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 14 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Jordan Horwat on 8/24/2018 5:43:28 PM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <p>Table of Contents:</p> <ul> <li><a href="#Automatic%20checkpoints%20are%20negatively%20impacting%20site%20performance.%20Is%20this%20expected%20behavior?">Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</a></li> <li><a href="#How%20can%20automatic%20checkpointing%20be%20disabled?">How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20checkpoints%20are%20scheduled%20manually%20(to%20avoid%20automatic%20checkpoints%20during%20business%20hours)%20and%20the%20number%20of%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints%20is%20much%20less%20than%20the%20number%20of%20checkpoints%20that%20would%20occur%20with%20automatic%20checkpointing,%20will%20the%20time%20to%20checkpoint%20increase%20greatly?">If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</a></li> <li><a href="#What%20is%20the%20recommended%20interval%20for%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Will%20the%20environment%20be%20completely%20unusable%20during%20the%20(fewer)%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Would%20adding%20execution%20and%20analytics%20engines%20to%20the%20environment%20diminish%20the%20effects%20of%20checkpoints%20for%20users?">Would&nbsp;adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20adding%20more%20Process%20Execution%20engines%20will%20not%20minimize%20user%20impact%20due%20to%20Execution%20engine%20checkpoints,%20what%20will?">If adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?</a></li> </ul> <p><strong><a id="Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</p> <p><strong>A:</strong>&nbsp;When automatic checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted during business hours, the effects may temporarily reduce system performance for on-premise, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any further requests until the checkpoint is complete. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be temporarily unresponsive which may cause user requests to be delayed or time out.</p> <p><strong><a id="How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by specifying the following properties and values in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.time=30 hours</li> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.replay=30 hours</li> </ul> <p>By configuring these settings, it makes it possible to avoid triggering checkpoints during business hours. This way, manually scheduled checkpoints (via cron job or scheduled task) can be configured to initiate checkpoints during off-hours, as explained in the&nbsp;Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. <strong>Note:&nbsp;</strong>if the manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will still run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong><a id="If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours) and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong><a id="What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>What is the recommended interval for manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><span style="color:#ff0000;"><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong></span><span style="color:#ff0000;">@Tom @Parmida, what is the official response? I can add a sentence here about the &quot;risk&quot; if this recommended interval is not followed.</span></p> <p><strong><a id="Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong><a id="Would adding execution and analytics engines to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Would <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Adding_Execution_and_Analytics_Engines.html">adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines</a>&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would help in this case. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would not be helpful, since any one of the engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is&nbsp;stored in&nbsp;the engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong><a id="If adding more Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">high availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a high availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine. As a result, if one instance of an engine is checkpointing, the remaining instances of that engine are available to serve user requests.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/13Fri, 24 Aug 2018 17:30:12 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Jordan Horwathttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 13 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Jordan Horwat on 8/24/2018 5:30:12 PM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <p>Table of Contents:</p> <ul> <li><a href="#Automatic%20checkpoints%20are%20negatively%20impacting%20site%20performance.%20Is%20this%20expected%20behavior?">Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</a></li> <li><a href="#How%20can%20automatic%20checkpointing%20be%20disabled?">How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20checkpoints%20are%20scheduled%20manually%20(to%20avoid%20automatic%20checkpoints%20during%20business%20hours)%20and%20the%20number%20of%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints%20is%20much%20less%20than%20the%20number%20of%20checkpoints%20that%20would%20occur%20with%20automatic%20checkpointing,%20will%20the%20time%20to%20checkpoint%20increase%20greatly?">If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</a></li> <li><a href="#Will%20the%20environment%20be%20completely%20unusable%20during%20the%20(fewer)%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#Would%20adding%20execution%20and%20analytics%20engines%20to%20the%20environment%20diminish%20the%20effects%20of%20checkpoints%20for%20users?">Would&nbsp;adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20adding%20more%20Process%20Execution%20engines%20will%20not%20minimize%20user%20impact%20due%20to%20Execution%20engine%20checkpoints,%20what%20will?">If adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?</a></li> </ul> <p><strong><a id="Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</p> <p><strong>A:</strong>&nbsp;When automatic checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted during business hours, the effects may temporarily reduce system performance for on-premise, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any further requests until the checkpoint is complete. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be temporarily unresponsive which may cause user requests to be delayed or time out.</p> <p><strong><a id="How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by specifying the following properties and values in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.time=30 hours</li> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.replay=30 hours</li> </ul> <p>By configuring these settings, it makes it possible to avoid triggering checkpoints during business hours. This way, manually scheduled checkpoints (via cron job or scheduled task) can be configured to initiate checkpoints during off-hours, as explained in the&nbsp;Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. <strong>Note:&nbsp;</strong>if the manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will still run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong><a id="If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours) and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong><a id="Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong><a id="Would adding execution and analytics engines to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Would <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Adding_Execution_and_Analytics_Engines.html">adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines</a>&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would help in this case. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would not be helpful, since any one of the engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is&nbsp;stored in&nbsp;the engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong><a id="If adding more Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">high availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a high availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine. As a result, if one instance of an engine is checkpointing, the remaining instances of that engine are available to serve user requests.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/12Fri, 24 Aug 2018 17:28:30 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Jordan Horwathttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 12 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Jordan Horwat on 8/24/2018 5:28:30 PM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <p>Table of Contents:</p> <ul> <li><a href="#Automatic%20checkpoints%20are%20negatively%20impacting%20site%20performance.%20Is%20this%20expected%20behavior?">Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</a></li> <li><a href="#How%20can%20automatic%20checkpointing%20be%20disabled?">How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20checkpoints%20are%20scheduled%20manually%20(to%20avoid%20automatic%20checkpoints%20during%20business%20hours)%20and%20the%20number%20of%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints%20is%20much%20less%20than%20the%20number%20of%20checkpoints%20that%20would%20occur%20with%20automatic%20checkpointing,%20will%20the%20time%20to%20checkpoint%20increase%20greatly?">If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</a></li> <li><a href="#Will%20the%20environment%20be%20completely%20unusable%20during%20the%20(fewer)%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#When%20observing%20the%20service-manager.log%20file%20during%20automatic%20checkpoints,%20it%20is%20noticed%20that%20the%20Process%20Execution%20engines%20checkpoint%20the%20most%20frequently%20and%20consequently%20reduce%20system%20performance.%20Would%20adding%20more%20Process%20Execution%20engines%20to%20the%20environment%20diminish%20the%20effects%20of%20these%20checkpoints%20for%20users?">When observing the&nbsp;<strong>service-manager.log</strong>&nbsp;file during automatic checkpoints, it is noticed&nbsp;that the Process Execution engines checkpoint the most frequently and consequently reduce system performance. Would adding more Process Execution engines to the environment diminish the effects of these checkpoints for users?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20adding%20more%20Process%20Execution%20engines%20will%20not%20minimize%20user%20impact%20due%20to%20Execution%20engine%20checkpoints,%20what%20will?">If adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?</a></li> </ul> <p><strong><a id="Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</p> <p><strong>A:</strong>&nbsp;When automatic checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted during business hours, the effects may temporarily reduce system performance for on-premise, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any further requests until the checkpoint is complete. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be temporarily unresponsive which may cause user requests to be delayed or time out.</p> <p><strong><a id="How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by specifying the following properties and values in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.time=30 hours</li> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.replay=30 hours</li> </ul> <p>By configuring these settings, it makes it possible to avoid triggering checkpoints during business hours. This way, manually scheduled checkpoints (via cron job or scheduled task) can be configured to initiate checkpoints during off-hours, as explained in the&nbsp;Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. <strong>Note:&nbsp;</strong>if the manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will still run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong><a id="If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours) and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong><a id="Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong><a id="When observing the service-manager.log file during automatic checkpoints, it is noticed that the Process Execution engines checkpoint the most frequently and consequently reduce system performance. Would adding more Process Execution engines to the environment diminish the effects of these checkpoints for users?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Would <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Adding_Execution_and_Analytics_Engines.html">adding&nbsp;execution and analytics&nbsp;engines</a>&nbsp;to the environment diminish the effects of checkpoints for users?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would help in this case. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;execution and analytics engines would not be helpful, since any one of the engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is&nbsp;stored in&nbsp;the engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong><a id="If adding more Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">high availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a high availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine. As a result, if one instance of an engine is checkpointing, the remaining instances of that engine are available to serve user requests.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/11Fri, 24 Aug 2018 17:10:57 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Jordan Horwathttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 11 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Jordan Horwat on 8/24/2018 5:10:57 PM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <p>Table of Contents:</p> <ul> <li><a href="#Automatic%20checkpoints%20are%20negatively%20impacting%20site%20performance.%20Is%20this%20expected%20behavior?">Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</a></li> <li><a href="#How%20can%20automatic%20checkpointing%20be%20disabled?">How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20checkpoints%20are%20scheduled%20manually%20(to%20avoid%20automatic%20checkpoints%20during%20business%20hours)%20and%20the%20number%20of%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints%20is%20much%20less%20than%20the%20number%20of%20checkpoints%20that%20would%20occur%20with%20automatic%20checkpointing,%20will%20the%20time%20to%20checkpoint%20increase%20greatly?">If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</a></li> <li><a href="#Will%20the%20environment%20be%20completely%20unusable%20during%20the%20(fewer)%20manually%20scheduled%20checkpoints?">Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</a></li> <li><a href="#When%20observing%20the%20service-manager.log%20file%20during%20automatic%20checkpoints,%20it%20is%20noticed%20that%20the%20Process%20Execution%20engines%20checkpoint%20the%20most%20frequently%20and%20consequently%20reduce%20system%20performance.%20Would%20adding%20more%20Process%20Execution%20engines%20to%20the%20environment%20diminish%20the%20effects%20of%20these%20checkpoints%20for%20users?">When observing the&nbsp;<strong>service-manager.log</strong>&nbsp;file during automatic checkpoints, it is noticed&nbsp;that the Process Execution engines checkpoint the most frequently and consequently reduce system performance. Would adding more Process Execution engines to the environment diminish the effects of these checkpoints for users?</a></li> <li><a href="#If%20adding%20more%20Process%20Execution%20engines%20will%20not%20minimize%20user%20impact%20due%20to%20Execution%20engine%20checkpoints,%20what%20will?">If adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?</a></li> </ul> <p><strong><a id="Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</p> <p><strong>A:</strong>&nbsp;When automatic checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted during business hours, the effects may temporarily reduce system performance for on-premise, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any further requests until the checkpoint is complete. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be temporarily unresponsive which may cause user requests to be delayed or time out.</p> <p><strong><a id="How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by specifying the following properties and values in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.time=30 hours</li> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.replay=30 hours</li> </ul> <p>By configuring these settings, it makes it possible to avoid triggering checkpoints during business hours. This way, manually scheduled checkpoints (via cron job or scheduled task) can be configured to initiate checkpoints during off-hours, as explained in the&nbsp;Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. <strong>Note:&nbsp;</strong>if the manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will still run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong><a id="If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours) and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong><a id="Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong><a id="When observing the service-manager.log file during automatic checkpoints, it is noticed that the Process Execution engines checkpoint the most frequently and consequently reduce system performance. Would adding more Process Execution engines to the environment diminish the effects of these checkpoints for users?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>When observing the <strong>service-manager.log</strong> file during automatic checkpoints, it is noticed&nbsp;that the Process Execution engines checkpoint the most frequently and consequently reduce system performance. Would adding more Process Execution engines to the environment diminish the effects of these checkpoints for users?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines would help in this situation. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines would not be helpful. Any one of the&nbsp;Process Execution engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific&nbsp;Process Execution engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is on the specific Execution engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong><a id="If adding more Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?"></a>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">high availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a high availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine (one set of Primary engines, and two sets of Replica engines). Checkpoints for any engine in this case would be performed by a Replica engine, while the Primary and other Replica engines are still&nbsp;available to server user requests while the checkpoint is being conducted.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/10Fri, 24 Aug 2018 17:05:31 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Jordan Horwathttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 10 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Jordan Horwat on 8/24/2018 5:05:31 PM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</p> <p><strong>A:</strong>&nbsp;When automatic checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted during business hours, the effects may temporarily reduce system performance for on-premise, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any further requests until the checkpoint is complete. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be temporarily unresponsive which may cause user requests to be delayed or time out.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by specifying the following properties and values in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.time=30 hours</li> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.replay=30 hours</li> </ul> <p>By configuring these settings, it makes it possible to avoid triggering checkpoints during business hours. This way, manually scheduled checkpoints (via cron job or scheduled task) can be configured to initiate checkpoints during off-hours, as explained in the&nbsp;Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. <strong>Note:&nbsp;</strong>if the manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will still run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>When observing the <strong>service-manager.log</strong> file during automatic checkpoints, it is noticed&nbsp;that the Process Execution engines checkpoint the most frequently and consequently reduce system performance. Would adding more Process Execution engines to the environment diminish the effects of these checkpoints for users?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines would help in this situation. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines would not be helpful. Any one of the&nbsp;Process Execution engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific&nbsp;Process Execution engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is on the specific Execution engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">high availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a high availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine (one set of Primary engines, and two sets of Replica engines). Checkpoints for any engine in this case would be performed by a Replica engine, while the Primary and other Replica engines are still&nbsp;available to server user requests while the checkpoint is being conducted.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/9Fri, 24 Aug 2018 17:01:00 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Jordan Horwathttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 9 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Jordan Horwat on 8/24/2018 5:01:00 PM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>When checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted, the effects may temporarily reduce system performance&nbsp;for On-Premise, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any further requests until the checkpoint is complete. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be temporarily unresponsive which may cause user requests to be delayed or time out.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by specifying the following properties and values in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.time=30 hours</li> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.replay=30 hours</li> </ul> <p>By configuring these settings, it makes it possible to avoid triggering checkpoints during business hours. This way, manually scheduled checkpoints (via cron job or scheduled task) can be configured to initiate checkpoints during off-hours, as explained in the&nbsp;Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. <strong>Note:&nbsp;</strong>if the manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will still run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>When observing the <strong>service-manager.log</strong> file during automatic checkpoints, it is noticeable that the Process Execution engines checkpoint the most frequently and consequently reduce system performance. Would adding more Process Execution engines to the environment diminish the effects of these checkpoints for users?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines would help in this situation. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines would not be helpful. Any one of the&nbsp;Process Execution engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific&nbsp;Process Execution engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is on the specific Execution engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">high availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a High Availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine (one set of Primary engines, and two sets of Replica engines). Checkpoints for any engine in this case would be performed by a Replica engine, while the Primary and other Replica engines are still&nbsp;available to server user requests while the checkpoint is being conducted.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/8Fri, 24 Aug 2018 17:00:32 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Jordan Horwathttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 8 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Jordan Horwat on 8/24/2018 5:00:32 PM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>When checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted, the effects may temporarily reduce system performance&nbsp;for On-Premise, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any further requests until the checkpoint is complete. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be temporarily unresponsive which may cause user requests to be delayed or time out.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by specifying the following properties and values in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.time=30 hours</li> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.replay=30 hours</li> </ul> <p>By configuring these settings, it makes it possible to avoid triggering checkpoints during business hours. This way, manually scheduled checkpoints (via cron job or scheduled task) can be configured to initiate checkpoints during off-hours, as explained in the&nbsp;Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. <strong>Note:&nbsp;</strong>if the manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will still run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>When observing the <strong>service-manager.log</strong> file during automatic checkpoints, it is noticeable that the Process Execution engines checkpoint the most frequently and consequently reduce system performance. Would adding more Process Execution engines to the environment diminish the effects of these checkpoints for users?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines would help in this situation. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines would not be helpful. Any one of the&nbsp;Process Execution engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific&nbsp;Process Execution engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is on the specific Execution engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">High Availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a High Availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine (one set of Primary engines, and two sets of Replica engines). Checkpoints for any engine in this case would be performed by a Replica engine, while the Primary and other Replica engines are still&nbsp;available to server user requests while the checkpoint is being conducted.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/7Fri, 24 Aug 2018 16:52:55 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Jordan Horwathttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 7 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Jordan Horwat on 8/24/2018 4:52:55 PM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>When checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted, the effects may cause user disruption for On-Premise, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any further requests until the checkpoint is complete. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be temporarily unresponsive which may cause user requests to be delayed or time out.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by specifying the following properties and values in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.time=30 hours</li> <li>serviceManager.checkpoint.automatic.boundary.replay=30 hours</li> </ul> <p>By configuring these settings, it makes it possible to avoid triggering checkpoints during business hours. This way, manually scheduled checkpoints (via cron job or scheduled task) can be configured to initiate checkpoints during off-hours, as explained in the&nbsp;Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. <strong>Note:&nbsp;</strong>if the manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will still run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>When observing the <strong>service-manager.log</strong> file during automatic checkpoints, it is noticeable that the Process Execution engines checkpoint the most frequently and consequently disrupt user experience. Would adding more Process Execution engines to the environment diminish the effects of these checkpoints for users?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines would help in this situation. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines would not be helpful. Any one of the&nbsp;Process Execution engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific&nbsp;Process Execution engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is on the specific Execution engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">High Availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a High Availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine (one set of Primary engines, and two sets of Replica engines). Checkpoints for any engine in this case would be performed by a Replica engine, while the Primary and other Replica engines are still&nbsp;available to server user requests while the checkpoint is being conducted.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/6Thu, 23 Aug 2018 23:03:52 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Tom Ryanhttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 6 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Tom Ryan on 8/23/2018 11:03:52 PM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>When checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted, the effects may cause user disruption for On-Premise, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any further requests until the checkpoint is complete. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be temporarily unresponsive which may cause user requests to be delayed or time out.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by altering specific properties in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>, allowing checkpoints to take place after business hours. These properties and alterations are described in the Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. However, if the manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>When observing the <strong>service-manager.log</strong> file during automatic checkpoints, it is noticeable that the Process Execution engines checkpoint the most frequently and consequently disrupt user experience. Would adding more Process Execution engines to the environment diminish the effects of these checkpoints for users?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines would help in this situation. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines would not be helpful. Any one of the&nbsp;Process Execution engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific&nbsp;Process Execution engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is on the specific Execution engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">High Availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a High Availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine (one set of Primary engines, and two sets of Replica engines). Checkpoints for any engine in this case would be performed by a Replica engine, while the Primary and other Replica engines are still&nbsp;available to server user requests while the checkpoint is being conducted.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/1Mon, 20 Aug 2018 19:33:30 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Jordan Horwathttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 1 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Jordan Horwat on 8/20/2018 7:33:30 PM<br /> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>When automatic checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted, the effects may cause user disruption for On-Premise, non-HA installations. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any other requests until it is done writing the checkpoint. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be unresponsive and cause user requests to fail.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by altering specific properties in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>, allowing checkpoints to take place after business hours. These properties and alterations are described in the Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. However, if the newly manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will run as a backup plan.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>When observing the <strong>service-manager.log</strong> file during automatic checkpoints, it is noticeable that the Process Execution engines checkpoint the most frequently and consequently disrupt user experience. Would adding more Process Execution engines to the environment diminish the effects of these checkpoints for users?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines would help in this situation. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines would not be helpful. Any one of the&nbsp;Process Execution engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific&nbsp;Process Execution engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is on the specific Execution engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">High Availability</a> configuration should minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a High Availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine (one set of Primary engines, and two sets of Replica engines). Checkpoints for any engine in this case would be performed by a Replica engine, while the Primary and other Replica engines are still&nbsp;available to server user requests while the checkpoint is being conducted.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div> https://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq/revision/5Mon, 20 Aug 2018 15:37:57 GMTd3a83456-d57b-489c-a84c-4e8267bb592a:5c23b9f1-0458-4802-98f2-077ca5f734a4Jordan Horwathttps://community.appian.com/support/w/kb/1087/kb-1678-engine-checkpoint-faq#commentsRevision 5 posted to Appian Knowledge Base by Jordan Horwat on 8/20/2018 3:37:57 PM<br /> <p>The purpose of this article is to answer some of the common questions regarding the Appian engine <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">checkpointing</a>.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Automatic checkpoints are negatively impacting site performance. Is this expected behavior?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>When automatic checkpoints for the Appian engines are conducted, the effects may cause user disruption for On-Premise, non-HA Appian environments. When a particular engine performs a checkpoint, it becomes unable to respond to any other requests until it is done writing the checkpoint. Therefore, if there are not multiple replicas of that engine, then that particular engine will be unresponsive and cause user requests to fail.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>How can automatic checkpointing be disabled?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is important to understand that automatic checkpoints cannot be disabled. However, automatic checkpoints can be&nbsp;<em>controlled&nbsp;</em>by altering specific properties in&nbsp;<strong>custom.properties</strong>, allowing checkpoints to take place after business hours. These properties and alterations are described in the Configuring Checkpoint Frequency section of the <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/Configuring_Application_Checkpointing.html">Configuring Application Checkpointing</a>&nbsp;documentation. However, if the newly manually configured checkpointing mechanism were to fail, automatic checkpoints will run as a backup plan.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If checkpoints are scheduled manually (to avoid automatic checkpoints during business hours)&nbsp;and the number of manually scheduled checkpoints is much less than the number of&nbsp;checkpoints that would occur with automatic checkpointing, will the time to checkpoint increase greatly?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>Not necessarily. How long it takes for an engine to checkpoint is more determined by the total size of the engine, rather than the number of transactions that have occurred since the last checkpoint.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>Will the environment be completely unusable during the (fewer) manually scheduled checkpoints?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>The environment should&nbsp;not be completely unusable. Service Manager will restrict checkpoints which have been requested so that not too many happen simultaneously. User actions&nbsp;that require a specific engine that is currently checkpointing are the only actions that will be affected.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>When observing the <strong>service-manager.log</strong> file during automatic checkpoints, it is noticeable that the Process Execution engines checkpoint the most frequently and consequently disrupt user experience. Would adding more Process Execution engines to the environment diminish the effects of these checkpoints for users?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>It is not likely that adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines would help in this situation. If the user actions/requests that are failing are trying to gather information about all processes, adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines would not be helpful. Any one of the&nbsp;Process Execution engines checkpointing will still impact user actions. However, if the user action is requesting data from a specific&nbsp;Process Execution engine, having more of them&nbsp;<em>may</em> help slightly, simply because of the&nbsp;decreased odds that the data being requested is on the specific Execution engine that is currently checkpointing.</p> <p><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong>If adding more&nbsp;Process Execution engines will not minimize user impact due to Execution engine checkpoints, what will?</p> <p><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong>A <a href="https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/latest/High_Availability_and_Distributed_Installations.html">High Availability</a> configuration should help to minimize the impact of any engine checkpoint. In a High Availability configuration, there are at least three instances of each Appian engine (one set of Primary engines, and two sets of Replica engines). Checkpoints for any engine in this case would be performed by a Replica engine, while the Primary and other Replica engines are still&nbsp;available to server user requests while the checkpoint is being conducted.</p> <h2>Affected Versions</h2> <p>This article applies to Appian 17.3 and later.</p> <p>Last Reviewed:&nbsp;August 2018</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div style="font-size: 90%;">Tags: engines, infrastructure, FAQ</div>