Managing Deferred Workload

Because you can connect from a single WebFOCUS Client installation to multiple WebFOCUS Reporting Servers, a single user can have deferred tickets for output residing on multiple servers. These servers can be on different platforms and may require different user IDs. Users have access to all deferred output, regardless of location, and are prompted for credentials automatically as needed.

There are administrator settings for managing deferred workload. Each server can have an alternate deferred server to separate interactive and deferred processing. You can limit the number of server agents allocated to handling deferred requests and the number of deferred requests a given user can process at one time (This limiting functionality is not available on OS/390 MVS). On OS/390 MVS, the UNIQUE global keyword restricts simultaneous server connections to one per logon ID, which can be used to manage both deferred and interactive workload when server authentication is used.

Understanding Alternate Deferred Servers

You can configure an alternate deferred server for one or more of your interactive servers. This type of configuration causes deferred requests to run against a specific server and connect to another server for processing. For example, if you are building a report in a domain that has a server set to HPUXPROD, if you do not change this setting, the report runs against HPUXPROD, but will run deferred against HPPRODDF because of the relationship configured in the WebFOCUS Administration Console, as shown in the following image.

Configuring alternate deferred servers is one way to manage deferred workload. Typically, the alternate deferred server is given fewer processing resources because users are not waiting interactively for the request to finish. This allows the interactive servers to have relatively more processing resources.

If you do not have access to the WebFOCUS Administration Console, contact your WebFOCUS Administrator or see the WebFOCUS Security and Administration manual.

Configuring Deferred Services

You can also manage the resources allocated to processing deferred requests without configuring additional servers. The WebFOCUS Server Web Console for a specific server enables you to configure workload settings for deferred requests independently of interactive requests.

For example, you can set the max_connections_per_user to 1 for the Deferred Service while allowing users to submit unlimited concurrent interactive requests as shown in the following image.

If you do not have access to the WebFOCUS Server Web Console, contact your WebFOCUS Server Administrator or see the Server Administration for UNIX, Windows, OpenVMS, IBM i, and z/OS manual.

Deferred Report Expiration Setting

How to:

Control Purging of Deferred Output

The WebFOCUS Reporting Server has an output expiration setting that controls when deferred output is purged from the WebFOCUS Reporting Server. This setting is made in the server configuration file (Windows and UNIX) and the deferred receipt listener node block (on z/OS).

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Syntax: How to Control Purging of Deferred Output

dfm_maxage={0|n}

where:

0: Indicates no expiration is configured.
n: Indicates n days until expiration. 30 is the default.

No setting means that the default of 30 days will be in effect.

The number of days until expiration are displayed next to each report. On the last day, the Today value is displayed.

Note: Cleanup of deferred output stored on the WebFOCUS Reporting Server is facilitated by the Deferred Management listener, which checks every time it wakes up. The listener's sleep interval is defined by the dfm_int_max parameter which defaults to 30 seconds if not specified. For more information about this and related parameters, click Deferred, followed by Keyword Reference under the WebFOCUS Reporting Server's Web Console Help link.

If a deferred report is not saved or deleted prior to its expiration, the output is automatically deleted from the WebFOCUS Reporting Server's dfm_dir directory and the deferred report is moved to the Unknown category in the Deferred Report Status Interface. From the Unknown category, the user can only delete the unknown report. For more information about cleaning up unknown deferred tickets, see Managing the Deferred Ticket Cleanup Utility.

Reading Saved Deferred Output Created by WebFOCUS CGI/ISAPI Client

In previous releases, when WebFOCUS was configured to use the CGI/ISAPI client, deferred output saved to a user's My Reports folder in the Managed Reporting Repository was written in a format that was incompatible with the WebFOCUS Servlet (WFServlet). Therefore, if you upgraded to WebFOCUS Version 7 Release 1, which required the WFServlet configuration for Managed Reporting, you could not access your saved deferred output. The WFServlet now detects and reads the legacy output format, while continuing to read and write with the newer format.

The WF_CGI_ENDIANNESS setting is located in the Managed Reporting section of the Configuration menu of the WebFOCUS Administration Console. This setting is used by WFServlet to determine the byte order of the deferred output. If your legacy saved deferred output was created on a platform with a little-endian byte order, for example, Intel x86, you should keep the default setting of LITTLE. If the output was created on a big-endian platform for example, IBM S/390, z/Series, and some UNIX and Linux systems, you should change the setting to BIG. Some platforms can be configured either way so consult with your administrator or experiment if you are unsure of the proper setting for your environment.

Because WFServlet runs on Java™ technology, which is always big-endian, new deferred output will always be written in big-endian format. Therefore, WF_CGI_ENDIANNESS is used by WFServlet only to determine how to read legacy saved deferred output created by the WebFOCUS CGI/ISAPI Client.