Configuring AX Engine Nodes

Use one or more instances of AX Engine Node to run analytics across multiple servers and increase processing power.

How it works

Increasing processing power

By default, analytics are processed directly on AX Server. Although this works in most cases, you may require more processing power when:

To increase processing power, you can configure one or more instances of AX Engine Node and run your analytics on these separate servers.

Balancing multiple nodes

When a node has space in its queue, it notifies AX Server that it can process jobs and the server then assigns jobs to that node. As a result, running multiple AX Engine Nodes that are allowed to handle several jobs simultaneously can cause one node to handle multiple jobs while others sit idle.

To ensure jobs are balanced across nodes, configure the maximum number of jobs each node can process as 1 and schedule analytic jobs accordingly.

Setting up AX Engine Nodes

Prerequisites

Before you add and configure an AX Engine Node in the AX Server Configuration web application, you must:

Add an AX Engine Node

Sign in to the AX Server Configuration web application and locate the Engine Nodes panel.
In the Add Engine Node panel, enter the following information:
- New Engine Node IP address or computer name: the hostname or IP address of the server where the AX Engine Node is installed
- Jobs (max): the maximum number of analytic jobs that the engine node can process at one time
  Note
  Jobs are queued until the number of concurrently running jobs falls below the maximum.
Click Add Engine Node.
Click Update Engine Node Settings.

Result: The AX Engine Node is used to process analytics. If it is the first AX Engine Node, processing is transferred from AX Server to the new node. If you added multiple AX Engine Nodes, scheduled jobs are distributed among them.

Configuring AX Engine Nodes

From the Engine Nodes panel of the AX Server Configuration web application, you can edit the configuration settings of any AX Engine Node you have added.

When you edit a value, click Update to save the change.

Individual AX Engine Node settings

Enabled/disable an engine node
Change the Hostname or IP address
Change the max jobs
Remove an engine node

Global AX Engine Node settings

Note

These settings apply to all instances of AX Engine Node and all analytics that run on the server(s).

You can copy data files to each AX Engine Node instance before analytics are processed using the Copy analytic data to engine node setting:

Yes: data files from the analytic folder of AX Server are copied to the analytic job directory of the AX Engine Node before processing starts
No: data files remain in the analytic folder of AX Engine Node and are not copied to the job directory of the AX Engine Node before processing starts

Copy data files	Do not copy data files
Improves performance when data files are repeatedly accessed across the network	Improves performance when a small number of analytics run simultaneously
Improves performance when running multiple analytics simultaneously or if a single analytic runs several commands on large data files	Improves performance when the time to copy data files outweighs the time you can save by by writing your analytics so that, whenever possible, analytic commands are run locally on the AX Engine Node. For example: Write a command to select only the required records from the table the script opens remotely. Use the EXTRACT command with the LOCAL parameter specified to extract the records into a new table on the AX Engine Node instance. Run any additional commands on the local table.

Copy data files

Do not copy data files

Improves performance when data files are repeatedly accessed across the network

Improves performance when a small number of analytics run simultaneously

Improves performance when running multiple analytics simultaneously or if a single analytic runs several commands on large data files

Improves performance when the time to copy data files outweighs the time you can save by by writing your analytics so that, whenever possible, analytic commands are run locally on the AX Engine Node.

For example:

Write a command to select only the required records from the table the script opens remotely.
Use the EXTRACT command with the LOCAL parameter specified to extract the records into a new table on the AX Engine Node instance.
Run any additional commands on the local table.