MOVEit Automation may require some tuning to improve performance over time as it's workload is increased. MOVEit Automation performs well under a wide variety of circumstances, but there's no single configuration that is best for everyone's environment and usage patterns.

As MOVEit Automation uses Windows users and there are no user-specific reports, reviewing performance tuning is done based on tasks.

This topic provides tips to tune a MOVEit Automation server. The tips are in no particular order.

Decrease debug levels

A switch from All Debug to File Completions can yield an immediate performance improvement.

Use system-wide task throttling

You can set the maximum number of tasks that MOVEit Automation can run at any given time in the System-Wide Task Settings. Additional tasks are queued and run as resources permit. This feature is useful on systems where:
  • Multiple tasks are configured to check for files at the same time. For example, multiple tasks might be configured to check for file updates every 15 minutes during a specified time.
  • There are many event-driven tasks. All event-driven tasks automatically perform a single check of their source(s) when they enter their scheduling window (often midnight) or when the MOVEit Automation service is restarted.
  • There are many tasks defined that involve a remote host but there is a strong incentive to not overload that remote host with too many connections or transfers at one time.

Stagger task schedules

If your system has several tasks with the same schedule, such as checking for file updates every 15 minutes between 2 pm and 5 pm, MOVEit Automation will start each of these tasks at 2:00 pm, 2:15 pm, 2:30 pm, etc.

To avoid these types of spikes, use the MOVEit Automation task filters to identify tasks that will run at a specific time. Each task can be moved forward or back a few minutes to stagger the start time.

Use event-driven tasks

When possible, event-driven tasks should be used with Windows and MOVEit Transfer filesystems so that tasks are only run when file events occur.

MOVEit Automation software polls MOVEit Transfer servers for a list of recently-arrived files. One request is made per polling interval, regardless of the number of tasks affected. Because MOVEit Automation does not sign on and sign off for each request, this process is more efficient than having many tasks that each run and check for recently arrived files.

Defrag hard drives

Ensure the hard drives are defragmented, and especially that MOVEit Automation's configuration files, log files and statistics databases are not highly fragmented files.

Performance improvements may be achieved by defragmenting files in the Program Files\MOVEit folder and its database folder.

Use the Delete from cache w/o overwrite option

MOVEit Automation normally deletes and then overwrites its cache files with cryptographic-quality random data. This process is secure but can be time-consuming. If the Delete from cache w/o overwrite option is selected, file transfers might be faster, especially large, file system-to-file system transfers but it is less secure.

Avoid virtual memory swapping

Memory swapping occurs when a program runs out of physical memory. At this point the operating system swaps memory temporarily to the disk drive. This happens a little bit at a time in the background, but when an active application begins swapping it slows down considerably.

To avoid this situation, ensure sufficient RAM of 2 MB per task for the total number of active tasks at any one time, on top of the required RAM for the operating system is available. For example, if there could be as many as 350 tasks running during the peak period, a minimum of 700 MB of RAM on top of the required RAM for the operating system is required.

Follow Progress recommendations for antivirus and data loss prevention (DLP) application usage

Depending on your MOVEit Automation configuration and the configuration of your antivirus or DLP application, conflicts can happen. Scanning files on the Automation server may cause a significant slowdown of file transfers without causing any actual errors. For information on how to avoid these situations, see: MOVEit Automation and Antivirus Agent Configuration FAQ