Alteryx Service: Workflow queue round-robin processing

_enrique_javier

Dear Community,

We have 3 servers where the Alteryx Service is setup as follows: server 1 is the Controller, servers 2 and 3 are Workers only; workers can run more than one workflow simultaneously, and when adding workflows to the queue, server 2 always picks them up first up to its limit, then server 3 kicks in; so, simple question: how can we make workflows to run in a round-robin fashion to better use our resources?

Thanks,

Enrique Javier

KevinP

@_enrique_javier The controller doesn't have any settings or capabilities to ensure workflows are assigned in any particular way. A common misconception is that the controller assigns queued jobs to the workers based on available work slots. However, this isn't the case as the controller doesn't keep track of workers at all. Instead the controller only manages a queue of jobs and assigns those jobs to a worker at the workers request. The workers meanwhile will consistently reach out to the controller to request a job from the queue if they have an available work slot. If there are no jobs currently in queue the controller just tells the worker to check back later. If there is a job in queue that job is assigned to the worker that made the request, and if the worker still has free work slots it will continue to request jobs periodically until all slots are filled. As such jobs are assigned in a first come first serve type of manner and there is no guarantee any one job will go to a particular worker. The advantage to this is that workers can come and go without impacting the controller at all, and the controller will not attempt to assign jobs to a worker that isn't available.