Hi All,
I am going to be creating a job server group to handle some of our heavy reports so that they do not interfere with other reports while being run. I have two nodes in my cluster and both have 24GB of ram. What do you guys recommend the approach for me to create the groups? Thanks
NycPriya (BOB member since 2010-11-04)
What I did was create new AJS’s on each node, limited to two concurrent jobs each, then I created a server group that includes these AJS’s and the WebI servers. This ensured that jobs assigned to that server group would not run more than four at a time.
Note that prior to BI4.2, server groups are not exclusive. In my case, there is no way to prevent other schedules from running on the servers in my server group, so there is the possibility that my schedules will not be able to run, if the four slots are consumed by other jobs. In BI4.2 (SP03, I think), there is Server Group Exclusivity, which can restrict servers to only schedules associated with the server group.
Joe
joepeters 
(BOB member since 2002-08-29)
Joe,
Thanks a lot. Sorry i should have mentioned i am on 4.2 sp2 patch 2. Are you saying that i will have to edit all my schedules to make sure they dont run on the server group i will create or just make sure the reports i want running on a specific server group are scheduled to run only using servers in the selected group?
NycPriya (BOB member since 2010-11-04)
It depends on your objective. If you are creating the server group because you want to limit the number of jobs that run concurrently for specific reports, then it will work as-is. All of the reports that you schedule to the server group will go into a specific queue, and only the set number will run concurrently.
But if your objective is to create a sever group so that the scheduled reports are guaranteed to have an available server when they are scheduled to run, then that is not possible prior to BI4.2 SP03 with Server Group Exclusivity. Here is a nice write-up about how it works: https://blogs.sap.com/2016/11/07/servergroup-enhancements-for-scheduling-in-4.2sp03/. And a discussion about this topic a few years ago.
Joe
joepeters (BOB member since 2002-08-29)
My objective is to create a server group for a specific reports as they are usually long running reports. I only want those reports running on a dedicated AJS so that they dont have to wait in line or other reports dont have to wait in line because these long running ones are taking up space. Hope that makes sense, i will have a read. Thank you.
NycPriya (BOB member since 2010-11-04)
Right, so it sounds like you need an exclusive server group, so you would need SP03.
joepeters (BOB member since 2002-08-29)
hey Joe,
Quick question, so if i do upgrade to sp3, all reports that i will schedule to that server group will run on those and other reports wont touch those server groups even though they are set to use “use any available server”. Is that correct?
Also, could you please recommend how i should split RAM if creating new AJS for exclusitivity?
Thanks
NycPriya (BOB member since 2010-11-04)
I haven’t used Exclusive Server Groups myself yet, I’m only going by what I’ve read. But I believe that the default behavior is the same as in prior versions – the exclusivity effect only occurs if you check off the “Exclusive Server Group” checkbox.
Not sure what you tell you about the memory settings… It really depends on the types of reports being run, the size, frequency, etc.
joepeters (BOB member since 2002-08-29)