Automic Workload Automation

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  • 1.  What are user's experience with using the "Load Dependent" Mode setting in Agent Groups?

    Posted Apr 03, 2026 02:59 PM

    When we were using v12, we found that setting Model to "Load Dependent" was so lacking that we had to create our own load balancer solution to take load on agents into account when Automic would send jobs to agents.  When we upgraded to v21, and then to v24, we decided to give "Next Listed" a shot and are finding that some of our agents end up running multiple long-running jobs while others are idle.

    Have users found that setting Mode to "Load Dependent" spreads jobs out such that the agents have a more-or-less equal load?  If not, what are you doing to remedy this issue?



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  • 2.  RE: What are user's experience with using the "Load Dependent" Mode setting in Agent Groups?

    Posted Apr 06, 2026 10:26 AM

    The documentation says:

    • Load dependent

      On the Agent with the lowest workload in the group according to the data delivered by the resources allocation.

      The following is taken into consideration:

      • Preference is given to Agents without resource limits.
      • The Agent with the lowest workload is used if there are resource limits for all Agents in the group.

    How is the lowest workload determined?  When I look the Job Res. Max settings in Administration->Agents in Client 0, is the workload the first number in: "48 (100)"?

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  • 3.  RE: What are user's experience with using the "Load Dependent" Mode setting in Agent Groups?

    Posted Apr 07, 2026 04:08 AM

    Newly launched tasks in the agent group are assigned to the agent with the fewest active tasks.

    This is the key difference from what Steve described. With "Next listed," the workload is ignored. So if, in an agent group consisting of two agents, every other task is a long-running one, all the long-running tasks will ultimately end up on the same agent :-).

    I'm not sure about the "48 (100)" since I haven't enabled any resource limits on my agents, but I would guess that 48 is the number of currently active tasks and 100 is the capping.



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  • 4.  RE: What are user's experience with using the "Load Dependent" Mode setting in Agent Groups?

    Posted 30 days ago

    Thank you for the response. I have more questions:

    When using "Load Dependent" does Automic take actual load (CPU/Memory/etc) on the agent into account when sending a job to it, or just number of activities (are those Automic jobs?)?

    Way back when we were using v12, we had set "Consume Resources" values for our jobs. Is that how "Load Dependent" approximates actual load? We put higher numbers in that field for larger, more resource intensive jobs. But back then the "Load Dependent" feature didn't really work very well.

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  • 5.  RE: What are user's experience with using the "Load Dependent" Mode setting in Agent Groups?

    Posted 29 days ago

    Hi Steve,

    no hardware information is considered, only the resource consumption defined for JOBS and JOBF. See also https://docs.automic.com/documentation/webhelp/english/ALL/components/DOCU/24.4.0/Automic%20Automation%20Guides/Content/AWA/Objects/obj_AgentGroupsDefining.htm

    BTW: this can be implemented using a custom developed routine.

    regards,
    Peter



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