Configuration Best Practices › AFP Transformer Performance

AFP Transformer Performance

Evaluate the following parameter settings when configuring the AFP transformers to optimize performance:

• X2YY MAXFILES
• CacheSize
• BUFSIZE
• TRANSFRM

Business Value:

The CPU saved by proper use of these tuning parameters can be dramatic when common AFP resources such company logos are used on every page of a file that is being transformed; when large files are transformed, and when large numbers of files are transformed at one time.

Additional Considerations:

To obtain optimal AFP Transformer performance and throughput, consider the following changes:

• Set X2YY MAXFILES to between 5 and 10.

  Note: A number higher than 10 will not increase throughput, it will just increase virtual storage usage below the 16 Mb-line.

• To allow for concurrent transformations remove TRANSFRM option R which causes a transformation report to be produced for each transformation.
• Use the following example as a model when specifying the AFP transformer parameter CacheSize.

  For example, if CacheSize is set at CacheSize=10M, up to 10Mb of AFP resources will be stored in memory to avoid reading the same resource members from the AFP resource libraries again and again. This will dramatically reduce I/O and CPU usage.

• Set BUFSIZE=27998 to reduce I/O and CPU overhead to read transformer input files and write corresponding transformer output files.
• Specify TRANSFRM option B to have multiple PCL, PostScript and PDF commands buffered into output records to reduce CPU usage.