Managing Watch Folder Task Schedulers

Applies To: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista

A watch folder's job manager uses a task scheduler to schedule and run jobs and to monitor and report job status. By default, a watch folder uses the Windows Task Scheduler on the local computer to run jobs. If CPU resources are limited on the local computer, you can specify a maximum number of jobs for the Task Scheduler to run simultaneously in a watch folder, or you can set priority values on multiple watch folders so that they don't run jobs at the same time.

For large, computation-intensive jobs where CPU resources won't be sufficient, you can shift the jobs from the local computer to computers in a High Performance Computing (HPC) cluster. These computers run the Windows HPC Server operating system, a solution built on Windows Server technology that provides a platform for clustering computers to perform computation-intensive tasks without specialized hardware. You can configure a local watch folder to use the HPC Task Scheduler on the head node in the HPC cluster. The HPC Task Scheduler will assign the jobs to compute nodes in the cluster and the CPU resources on the compute nodes will be used for running jobs. For more information about how to use IIS Transform Manager with an HPC cluster, see High-Performance Transcoding with IIS Transform Manager and Windows HPC Server.

Use the following procedure to specify the maximum number of jobs that can be run simultaneously by a task scheduler.

To specify task scheduler job limits

1. In the Connections pane, click Watch Folders.

2. In the Actions pane, click Manage Schedulers.

3. In the Manage Schedulers dialog box, in the Schedulers list, select a task scheduler, and then click Edit.

4. In the Edit Scheduler dialog box, configure options for job limits by doing the following:

   To specify a maximum number of jobs that can be run simultaneously by the task scheduler, clear the Unlimited check box, and then select a value in Concurrent jobs. The task scheduler will create a job for each media asset that's dropped in a watch folder (if it matches the watch folder's File filter setting). If the watch folder has the highest priority setting of all active watch folders, the scheduler will start to run job tasks, up to the number of concurrent jobs that you specify (provided that CPU resources are available). The task scheduler will queue jobs that exceed this limit and submit queued jobs for processing as currently running jobs are completed. On more powerful computers, you can select a higher Concurrent jobs value to take advantage of the additional processing power.

   -or-

   To immediately schedule all files for processing that are detected in a watch folder, select the Unlimited check box. The task scheduler will create a job for each media asset that's dropped in a watch folder (if it matches the watch folder's File filter setting). If the watch folder has the highest priority setting of all active watch folders, the scheduler will start to run job tasks, up to the limits of the available CPU resources. The Unlimited setting can be useful for running short tasks that consume few resources.

See Also

Concepts

Configuring Watch Folders