Use of "abort service" in lieu of "stop" to stop the Post or any other Shareplex process that doe (4297168)

At times Shareplex processes do not stop gracefully. This happens with Post when it is processing a large transaction.  It also happens with other processes if they face abnormal conditions. In these situations when a "stop <process> " is issued, the status shows that the process is "stopping" and not "stopped by user". The only option left is to wait for the process to stop cleanly or issue a "shutdown force" of Shareplex which is a type of abnormal shutdown and results in all Shareplex processes being stopped even though the problem may exist with one process.

Information about dealing with process that does not stop cleanly by using "abort service" as an alternative.

Shareplex offers a command "abort service" that comes handy when dealing with processes that do not stop gracefully.  This command allows the user to be able to continue without having to shutdown Shareplex using the "force" option.

When a "stop <process> " command is issued and if the process does not shutdown cleanly in a reasonable time, then the most suitable option left is to shutdown Shareplex with the "force" option. This results in the stoppage of other processes as well as Shareplex. The "abort service <process>" command  avoids shutting down Shareplex and instead just shuts down the process in question.  The "abort service <process>" does an unclean stop of the process so it may not be suitable in those rare situations where process is required to stop cleanly.  

The most common use of the command is to stop the process to set debug, change parameters that require the process restart, etc, and the process does not stop as it is in the middle of a large transaction. In such cases the "abort service <process>" command may be used in leu of "shutdown force" as the following illustrates:

a. Command to stop Post is issued but the process is "stopping" for a long time and is not "stopped by user"
sp_ctrl > stop post queue queue_name
sp_ctrl>show
MTPost     o.sourceSID-queue_name        o.target_SID        Stopping               2227
.
.
b. "Abort service" command is executed instead and it is able to stop the process, though not cleanly:
sp_ctrl > abort service post queue queue_name
sp_ctrl>show

MTPost     o.sourceSID-queue_name        o.target_SID        Aborting               2227
.
.
sp_ctrl>show
MTPost     o.sourceSID-queue_name        o.target_SID        Stopped by user
.
.

The following excerpt from Reference Guide provides more information on the command:

Use the abort service command to terminate a SharePlex replication process (service) immediately, whether or not that process has finished reading from, or writing to, its queues. This command is effective when you cannot wait for a process to stop gracefully, or in unusual circumstances when a process will not shut down when you issue the stop command.

This command does not affect replicated data. The data remains safely in the queues, and SharePlex resumes normal processing when the process is started again.

A process aborted with the abort service command remains stopped even if SharePlex is shut down and re-started. Only the start command can start it again (see page 205). The abort service command provides options with which you can abort a process for any (or all) systems, or for a named queue, without affecting replication for other route