A NEW TODAY IS DAWNING!

TB0017 - Link Monitor Settings

Number: TB0017

Availability: As of BuildPro 8.00. on all platforms


Introduction

Link Monitor is a mechanism for monitoring the network link between the BuildPro Windows Client and the BuildPro Server. It has been implemented as a monitoring program running on the Windows Client side. The program periodically sends a message to the Session Manager to check whether the network connection is still available and to inform the Session Manager that the client session is still active. The cause for any detected failure in the network link is signaled to the user as an error message (LM???).

The Session Manager needs to know if Windows Clients are still alive or not. If a session has been terminated abnormally, it is important to free up resources (licenses, record locks, roll-back transactions etc). A session could terminate abnormally by a dropped network connections, a failed PC (crashed, turned off etc) or general network congestion.

The Link Monitor feature is controlled by two parameters (LinkActiveFrequency and LinkActiveInterval) in the [Session Manager Service: <class> <member>] section of the nimconf file.

NOTE: For all normal use (LAN, WAN etc), the default settings will produce the best results. Only change these settings after thorough internal testing.


Parameter: LinkActiveFrequency

This parameter controls the rate at which the Link Monitor program sends messages to the Session Manager. Its' value is expressed in seconds and there is no default. If the parameter is not defined then the feature is not active (even if the LinkActiveInterval parameter is defined). If this feature is not active, the BuildPro Client will not be able connect to the server. By increasing the value of LinkActiveFrequency you may speed up the download of the data but unless you have a very slow connection (approximately 9600 BAUD) this is not necessary as the improvement will hardly be noticeable. It is probably best to check how long the largest screen will take to download in a worst-case situation and set the LinkActiveInterval accordingly. Then set the LinkActiveFrequency to 1/5th the size of LinkActiveInterval (1/10 if it is very large, i.e. > 500).
 

Parameter: LinkActiveInterval

Determines the time interval after which the Session Manager will assume that the client side is no longer active and terminate the server (and the session). Its value is expressed in seconds and it cannot be less then the value of LinkActiveFrequency. The default value is five times the value of LinkActiveFrequency. To prevent link monitor dropping your connection after an extended period of inactivity or when BuildPro is trying to download something you can increase the value of LinkActiveInterval. It is important not to make this interval unnecessarily large, as there will be many unused sessions open on the server since it will not know that the connection have dropped out.