OK, 'bog down' may not be the most technical term! Yes, while there is no theoretical limit for WP's, each WP consumes system resource. They also need to communicate with each other and the DB, so there is increased background chatter (there's my technical terminology again) as you run more.
I'm not sure exactly why your extra WP didn't become a DWP. The first thing I would check is that the nodename is correct. eg
Also note that the number specified excludes the PWP, so setting this to 5 will create 1 PWP + 5 WP's, the 6th will become a DWP.
Original Message:
Sent: Jan 06, 2025 08:09 AM
From: Mason Wheeler
Subject: Automic AWI Consistently slow interface
Hi Mike, when you say bog a system down, are you meaning by consuming resources on the AE server?
I did confirm that WP_MIN_NUMBER is now configured but I did notice it seems that it didn't flip the extra WP's to DWP's like I would expect so I just manually flipped them.
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Mason Wheeler
Application Support Engineer
Original Message:
Sent: Jan 05, 2025 05:46 PM
From: Mike Halliday
Subject: Automic AWI Consistently slow interface
As Daryl correctly said, WP_MIN_NUMBER is the best way to manage the number of running WP's. If you are running multiple engine servers (definitely recommended in Prod!), ensure that your nodename in the ucsrv.ini is unique for each server as these are how WP_MIN_NUMBER identifies which server to apply the setting to.
Also, while too few Work Processes affects performance, too many will also bog down the system, however DWP's have very little overhead and starting more WP's in Service Manager with a well defined WP_MIN_NUMBER setting will just make more DWP's.
Original Message:
Sent: Jan 03, 2025 03:53 PM
From: Daryl Brown
Subject: Automic AWI Consistently slow interface
Glad that helped! :)
In terms of adding additional AE processes, I've had that question as well, as we now have a lot more running than we did back in v12 -- we now have 2 CPs, 2 DWPs, 2 JCPs, 4 JWPs, 1 REST, and 4 WPs per AE in our prod environment -- but I haven't noticed any problems arise from it.
I have still occasionally dealt with some AWI slowness, but I think those might be network-related issues in our case. But when our Ops team has informed us of really poor AWI performance, I've usually found that our DWP count is lower than it ought to be.
Note -- check out the WP_MIN_NUMBER setting in your UC_SYSTEM_SETTINGS var, too --https://docs.automic.com/documentation/webhelp/english/ALL/components/DOCU/24.1/Automic%20Automation%20Guides/Content/AWA/Variables/UC_SYSTEM_SETTINGS.htm?Highlight=uc_system_settings . This setting will ensure it automatically toggles any excess WPs into DWPs for you. Otherwise, you'll need to toggle them manually back to DWPs whenever you restart your AE server.
Original Message:
Sent: Jan 03, 2025 03:15 PM
From: Mason Wheeler
Subject: Automic AWI Consistently slow interface
Daryl, so far I have seen drastic improvement from what I was experiencing before. I did upscale the amount of DWP's from the recommendation just to be safe. Have you seen any harm come from that?
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Mason Wheeler
Application Support Engineer
Original Message:
Sent: Jan 03, 2025 12:50 PM
From: Daryl Brown
Subject: Automic AWI Consistently slow interface
DWPs -- Dialog Work Processes -- are a specialized form of WP that are dedicated to handling AWI requests, as opposed to executing tasks. See https://docs.automic.com/documentation/webhelp/english/ALL/components/DOCU/24.1/Automic%20Automation%20Guides/Content/AWA/Admin/admin_types_of_server_processes.htm?Highlight=DWP#link4.
From the AWI, if you select one or two of your regular WPs (not the PWP, and not WPs with a role of R or O), you should be able to do a right-click>Server Mode>Change server mode to DWP. My guess is that you'll notice an improvement in AWI performance after that.
I would defer to the System Sizing doc -- https://docs.automic.com/documentation/webhelp/english/ALL/components/DOCU/24.1/Automic%20Automation%20Guides/Content/Installation_Common/install_AWA_ARA_sys_requirements_sizing.htm?Highlight=dwp -- to get a sense of how many WPs/DWPs (and other processes) you should have. Based on what I'm seeing there, you may want to spin up some additional WP, JWP, and/or DWP processes for your server, too.
Original Message:
Sent: Jan 03, 2025 12:23 PM
From: Mason Wheeler
Subject: Automic AWI Consistently slow interface
Hi Daryl, thanks for the reply. I assume when you say DWP you mean WP's? In non-production we have 4 WP's, and 1 JCP. We don't many many users but at most we would have 5 users connected to non-production at once.
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Mason Wheeler
Application Support Engineer
Original Message:
Sent: Jan 03, 2025 12:14 PM
From: Daryl Brown
Subject: Automic AWI Consistently slow interface
I've seen this behavior from time to time as well (although we're currently on 21.1.0)...but the first thing I would check would be your DWPs.
How many of them do you have running in total? How many concurrent users on average in your environment?
You might also want to check your JCPs, too... How many of those do you have running?
Original Message:
Sent: Jan 03, 2025 11:52 AM
From: Mason Wheeler
Subject: Automic AWI Consistently slow interface
Hello, I was reaching out to see if anyone else experiences the same issue as we are where the AWI interface can be slow to respond or will freeze with the loading bar going across the screen for multiple minutes sometimes before the screen or context menu will load. We are currently on version 24.2 in our Non-production environment but also experience this in our Production environment on 21.0.4. We are using tomcat 9 in both environments running on a linux server for the AWI.
What are some recommendations or suggestions on where to start looking for the reason for the slowness? We have had our infrastructure team review from a server/vmware perspective and are not seeing anything obvious that is causing the issues.
I apprecaite any assistance!
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Mason Wheeler
Application Support Engineer
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