Creating Ultra Tasks

Owned by John Brinckwirth
Last updated: Sept 11, 2023

In this article

Overview

Ultra Tasks define the configuration to run an Ultra Pipeline on a Snaplex. When you activate an Ultra Task, the associated Snaplex starts one or more Pipeline instances that continuously process documents from a Feedmaster or another message queue. If you modify assets related to an active Ultra Task, in some cases, the Snaplex restarts the Pipeline instances automatically.

For high availability and disaster recovery, you can run a Pipeline in multiple regions. To do this, create multiple Ultra Tasks for the same Pipeline using the same alias. Assign each Ultra Task to a Snaplexex in a different region. When an Ultra Pipeline in one region fails, a Snaplex in another region can run the Ultra Task by invoking the Ultra Task with the same alias. Learn more about the deployment architecture for providing high availability and disaster recovery.

You can tune Ultra Task performance by specifying the number of Pipeline instances to run and the maximum number of documents that one instance should process at a time. Also, you can specify how many times a Pipeline can fail before the Snaplex disables the Ultra Task. Configuration Options describes the fields that control these behaviors, Instances (per Snaplex), Max In-Flight, and Maximum Failures.

Prerequisites

  • A Snaplex with one or more Feedmaster nodes.

  • Write permissions for the Project Space.

  • A valid Pipeline.

Workflow

Creating an Ultra Task

  1. From Designer or Manager, open the Create Task dialog:

    • In Designer with the Pipeline open, in the toolbar, click More Tools. Click Create Task and select Ultra Task:

       

    • In Manager, from the left navigation, select the Project containing the Pipeline. In the toolbar, click Create and select Task > Ultra Task.

       

      The Create Task dialog displays:

       

  2. Edit the required fields:

    1. Name. Enter a name. This name is used in the URL when the Pipeline has unconnected inputs/outputs. 
      The names of assets, projects, or project spaces are limited to UTF-8 alphanumeric characters and these special characters: !"$%&'()*+,-.:;<=>@[]^_`{|}~.

    2. Pipeline. If not already selected, click the drop-down menu and select the Pipeline to be triggered by the Ultra Task. 

      If you choose a Pipeline that contains parameters, the parameters display in the Create Task dialog, where you can modify them. In the following example, the parameter keys path, full, and table name are displayed, with their entries as the corresponding values. In the full field, the values contain nested JSON.

       

    3. Snaplex. From the drop-down menu, select a Snaplex that has a Feedmaster. 

  3. Modify the applicable optional fields as described in Configuration Options.

  4. Click Save.

  5. (Optional) To create an API in API Manager, click Save and create API. Learn more about creating APIs from Ultra Tasks.

Configuration Options

Field

Description

Field

Description

Notifications

Enables email notifications based on the status of the Scheduled Task. If your Org supports Slack notifications, you can add Slack channels or recipients. 

To use notifications:

  1. In Notifications, enter each recipient's email address, separated by commas.

  2. If Slack notifications are configured for your Org, the following fields display. You can select from the dropdown list or start typing a name to find it in the list:

    • Direct Message(s). Select individuals to receive notifications.

    • Channels. Select channels to receive notifications.

  3. Select the status that triggers notifications from the When Task has selector:

    • Started. The Task is activated.

    • Completed. The Task is completed.

    • Failed. The associated Pipeline did not execute.

    • Stopped. The associated Pipeline has stopped abruptly and the Task is no longer running.

Number of Instances

 

Select from the dropdown to scale the running instances for the Ultra Tasks.

 Important

  • To access the Manual per snaplex and Autoscale based on feedbamster queue options, you must update your Snaplexes to the 4.33.2 Patch 2 (Restricted Distribution). We recommend that you run this Snaplex version on your development Org.

  • Ensure you have all the recent updates to Ultra enhancements to use the Autoscaling feature.

  • Manual per snaplex: Specifies the number of instances per Snaplex equal to or greater than 1.

    • Default: 1

    • Minimum: 1

    • Maximum: 1000

  • Manual per node: Specifies the number of instances per node, which must be in the range of 1-99 inclusively. The total number of instances is based on available nodes. By default, the instance value is set to 1.

  • Autoscale based on Feedmaster queue: (Advanced option) Specifies the minimum and the maximum numbers of instances per Snaplex, which must be in the range of 1-99 inclusively. By default, the instance values are set to 1.

    You can also view details of the Auto-scaling events in the Activity log under the Snaplex tab with information on the previous and current configurations.

This configuration applies only to Response-and-request Ultra Pipeline Tasks. Ultra Auto-scaling setting is not available for Polling Ultra Pipeline Tasks.

Specifies how many instances of the Pipeline should be running on a Snaplex.

The default value is 1.

The Snaplex distributes instances across nodes. For example, If a Snaplex has five nodes and this value is set to 10, the Snaplex starts two instances on each node. The algorithm for distributing executions on nodes is based on the number of currently running Ultra Task instances.

A document is processed by only one instance.If the Pipeline or node fails for any reason, then the document is unacknowledged in the queue. Consequently, when the consumer is recognized as no longer being connected, the document returns to the queue and is picked up by another instance.

Alias

Use an alias to run an Ultra Task in multiple regions for high availability and disaster recovery. Use the same alias in multiple Ultra Tasks that run the same Pipeline. When an Ultra Task in one region fails, a Snaplex in another region can run the Pipeline by invoking the Ultra Task that shares the Alias name. The Ultra Task that shares the Alias must be in the same project folder as the primary Ultra Task, but be deployed to different Snaplex instances.

Bearer Token

An automatically generated token for the HTTP Authorization header. If you clear this field, authentication is not required. You can also set the value yourself. 

To authenticate the application successfully, ensure to remove the special characters from the token when adding or updating the values.

Maximum Failures

Specifies an optional threshold when the pipeline fails to start. If the number of failures reaches the threshold, the Snaplex disables the Ultra Task. The default value is 10. The maximum value is 1000.

Set the value to 0 to remove the limitation on pipeline failures.

During development, the pipeline can be in an invalid state and fail to start multiple times. Therefore, in this scenario, we recommend that you set the value to 0 until the pipeline is ready for production.

Max In-Flight

Specifies a threshold for documents to be processed on a single Pipeline instance. Once the execution reaches the threshold, the Snaplex distributes to other instances of the Ultra Pipeline. This enables you to prevent an excessive number of documents from being queued on a single, slow execution.

Set the Max In-Flight value to the maximum number of documents that can be processed by one instance at a time.

Default: 200

Minimum: 1

Maximum: 1000

Set this value higher if the Ultra Task executions take a long time.

A value of 1 disables the prefetching of documents and can negatively affect performance. 

Editing an Ultra Task

  1. Click Manager.

  2. From the left navigation, select the Project Space to which the Ultra Task belongs.

  3. Select the Tasks tab.

  4. Click the Ultra Task name. The Edit Update Task dialog appears.

  5. Edit the Ultra Task and click Save to close the dialog.

Changing the Run Policy

When you create an Ultra Task, Ultra is set as the Run Policy by default. If you change the Run Policy setting to Triggered or Scheduled, you must re-configure the Task.

Viewing Ultra Task Execution Details

After you create and enable your Ultra Task, you can view execution details.

  1. In Manager, navigate to the Ultra Task and select Details from the dropdown menu:

  2. On the Task Details page, view execution statistics by clicking Run Details:

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