Optimising Runbook Performance

Changing the maximum number of simultaneous Runbooks a Runbook Server can execute

By default, each Orchestrator Runbook Server is configured to simultaneously run a maximum of 50 runbooks.  This is to control the CPU and Memory load placed on the Orchestrator Runbook Server by executing Runbooks.

You can change this number by using the Runbook Server Runbook Throttling tool.  In most cases, you can increase the default setting.

If Orchestrator has a number of Runbooks with high CPU or Memory resource requirements, you might run fewer Runbooks simultaneously.

Normal Runbooks have minimal requirements and execute very quickly and therefore place a very small load on the Runbook Server CPU and Memory.  In fact queueing up Runbooks, because of the maximum simultaneous Runbook limit has been reached, actually increases the CPU and Memory load on the Runbook Server because each queued Runbook takes up more Memory space whilst it waits to be executed, than it does to run it.

So you can increase the number of simultaneously executed Runbooks and improve your Orchestrator system performance.

To configure the maximum number of Runbooks that a Runbook Server processes:

Navigate to the folder where by default the Runbook Server Runbook Throttling tool is stored: 
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft System Center 2012\Orchestrator\Management Server

Type one of the following commands:

• To apply the change to one runbook server: 
  
  aspt
  
  For example, to set the maximum number of Runbooks that RunbookServer1 runs to 100: 
  
  aspt RunbookServer1 100
  
  
• To apply the change to all runbook servers: 
  
  aspt *
  
  For example, to set the maximum number of Runbooks that all Runbook servers run to 200: 
  
  aspt * 200

Restart the Orchestrator Runbook Service on each Runbooks Server modified.

Finding the current maximum simultaneous Runbook limit setting

The aspt command itself won’t tell you what the current maximum simultaneous Runbook limit is set at.

But if need to know, look at table dbo.Actionservers in your Orchestrator database there is an entry for each deployed Runbook Server with a column saying the Maximum Running Policies, this will tell your.

Note: ActionServer = Runbook Server, Policy = Runbook; both are leftovers from Orchestrator’s previous life as Opalis