Implementation Guide › Optimizing Identity Manager › Task Optimizations › Task Processing and Performance

Task Processing and Performance

Admin tasks include events, actions that CA Identity Manager performs to complete the task. A task may include multiple events. For example, the Create User task may include events that create the user's profile, add the user to a group, and assign roles.

When CA Identity Manager processes a task, it processes each event associated with the task. During event processing, CA Identity Manager saves each event four times. This allows CA Identity Manager to preserve in-process actions in the event of an unexpected system shutdown.

When CA Identity Manager processes multiple events at the same time, the events are added to a queue. When the first event completes the first stage of its lifecycle, it is saved, and then moved to the back of the queue to wait for the second stage processing to begin. CA Identity Manager then completes the first processing stage for the next event in the queue, and that event moves to the end of the queue. The process continues until all of the events in the queue have completed the first processing stage. Then, the first event in the queue begins the second processing phase. This continues until all of the events in the queue complete all four processing stages.

Under normal load conditions, this behavior does not impact performance. However, if the system is processing a large number of tasks and events, such as during a bulk load of a large user population, each event and task must wait longer in the queue and, therefore, has a longer completion time.

To prevent performance issues under load conditions, consider the following actions:

• Use the Task Priority setting on a task's Profile tab.

  The Task Priority setting allows you to set the priority of a task to High, Medium, or Low.

  Tasks that need to be processed immediately should be set to High. Tasks involved in a bulk load should be set to Low.

  If a task priority is set, the events associated with the task are processed with other tasks that have the same priority. For example, if the Modify User task is set to High priority, and an administrator modifies a user profile, CA Identity Manager processes that task before tasks with Medium or Low priority. If there are other High priority tasks, CA Identity Manager completes the first processing stage for the first High priority event and then moves that event to the end of the list of other High priority events.

• Install a separate, dedicated Identity Manager Server to handle bulk load operations