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Foglight Transaction Recorder 5.6.12 - Recorder User Guide

Overview of Foglight synthetic monitoring Use the Foglight Transaction Recorder Create and upload Foglight Transaction Recorder scripts View Foglight Transaction Recorder results Settings How Do I... Appendix: Best practices Appendix: Troubleshoot the Foglight Transaction Recorder Appendix: API for FTR Timer Usage

Assigning worker processes

The Number of Worker Processes property of a Foglight Transaction Player agent determines the maximum number of concurrent scripts that can be executed by the agent. The correct setting for this property is determined by the number of scripts assigned to the agent and their respective expected times and sample intervals.
Dell recommends a maximum value of five worker processes per Foglight Transaction Player agent but this maximum is not strictly enforced. The total number of worker processes on all agents on an FTR host machine also has a practical limit although this is also is not strictly enforced. See Maximum Number of Concurrent Scripts per Foglight Transaction Player Host for more information.
The correct setting can be calculated as described below or simply determined by trial and error. An alarm occurs if a script is not executed because there are not enough worker processes assigned to the agent. The value can be incremented at this time.
Scripts scheduling is best explained by an example. Suppose a Foglight Transaction Player agent has a script list consisting of five scripts; S1, S2, …, S5 with expected times of ET1, ET2, …, ET5. For simplicity, the sample interval for each of these scripts is 300s.
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"S1 is scheduled to execute at time 0 and every 300s thereafter: 0, 300, 600, 900, …
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"S2 is offset from S1 by ET1 and executes every 300s thereafter: 0+ET1, 300+ET1, ...
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"S2 is offset from S1 by ET1 + ET2 and executes every 300s thereafter: 0+ET1+ET2, 300+ET1+ET2, …
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"S5 is offset from S1 by ET1+ET2+ET3+ET4, and executes every 300s thereafter…
To determine the minimum number of worker processes required to run a set of scripts, divide the sum of the expected times of the scripts by the sample interval and round up the next integer. For instance, if a Script List contains 12 scripts with combined Expected Time of 720s and a sample interval of 300s, the minimum number of worker processes is: 720/300 = 2.4 rounded up to 3. In this case, some of the scripts will not run during the first or second sample intervals but will eventually run on a regular schedule as described above.
If a script is running slowly and exceeding its expected time, the next scheduled script executes on time if there is a worker process available. If no worker process is available, the script waits a period of time equal to the script interval minus 10 seconds before being abandoned for this interval. An alarm is created when this occurs.
Keep in mind that regardless of the numbers of worker processes configured on a Foglight Transaction Player host, only one script can run visibly at any given time. This is managed by a semaphore that is set in addition to worker process settings. This is particularly important when implement FTR Advanced scripts. When a script that is set to run visible does not have a worker process available, it waits 10 minutes before being abandoned.

Appendix: Troubleshoot the Foglight Transaction Recorder

Use all of the following steps when an (Foglight Transaction Recorder) FTR script plays correctly in the recorder, but fails to play back correctly in the agents.
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IMPORTANT: If escalation is required, attach all of the requested material attached to the case prior to escalating to Dell Software development.
The following troubleshooting steps are provided:
1
Use the script properties
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Verify the Foglight environment
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Remote Desktop
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Verify script playback
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Ensure users are logged out before running a script
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Run as a user
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FTR Advanced best practices
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Duplicate the steps in Internet Explorer
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TPRunscript
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Contact Dell Support and collect support documentation

Use the script properties

When using script properties, note the following:
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If the domain field is left blank it will default to the computer name, which makes the user a local machine user.
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Users should be a member of the Administrators group on the local computer.

Verify the Foglight environment

Verify that the Foglight environment is setup correctly by creating and running a simple FTR script through an agent.
To verify the Foglight environment:
1
Create a simple FTR script.
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Publish it, create an agent, and configure it to run the script in As User. The script can be as simple as navigating to Google or an About:Blank page. The goal is to ensure that the script runs and returns results verifying the configuration.
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