Execution Groups / Channel Isolation (v15)
- Nick Judson
(Applies to version 15 and above)
Connexion has the ability to isolate channels in a dedicated Connexion process (Connexion.exe). Isolating channels ensures stability and predictable performance when your Connexion system also hosts unproven channels / devices. It allows for the development and testing of channels / devices without the risk of negatively affecting production workflows. Execution groups also provide support for legacy 32-bit assemblies which cannot run in 64-bit processes.
An "execution group" is a Connexion.exe process which hosts your channel(s). By default, Connexion runs 3 processes: a channel host process, a system host process, and a process manager. When looking at processes in your task manager, you should see (#ExecutionGroups + 1) processes. Note that 32-bit execution groups run 'Connexion32.exe'
All channels within a specific group and/or tab are assigned to an execution group. There is no mechanism to isolate specific individual channels to an execution group, instead it must be moved to a dedicated tab (which can be assigned a dedicated execution group). To view the execution groups UI, click the 'System Configuration' icon and select the 'Execution Groups' tab.
The left pane lists all execution groups. Execution groups can be added or removed by using the green triangle icons in the Execution Group column header.
- Execution Group: The name of the execution group. This can be edited by double clicking the cell.
- 32-bit: Is the execution group running in 32-bit mode. This can only be set at the time of creating the execution group.
- Process Id: You can use this number to lookup the associated process in the task manager. It is also displayed in other areas of the UI (such as the channel name tooltip).
- CPU: Current CPU usage for the process (updated periodically).
- Memory: The RAM usage for the process (updated periodically).
- Recycle Process: Clicking on the recycle process icon allows you to kill a specific process. All channels hosted by that process will be recycled. Note that the system execution group cannot be recycled.
The right pane lists all groups and tabs and the execution group with which they're associated. When selecting an execution group in the left pane, all groups/tabs which are part of that execution group will become selected in the right pane. To change the execution group for a group or tab, click the combobox in the 'Execution Group' column and choose the desired target. When changing the value for a group, all child tabs with the same original value will also be updated.
Execution Group Cap
Execution groups require a small but significant amount of system resources. There is no artificial cap on the number of processes which can be run, however we recommend you closely monitor system performance when adding new groups. In production, we have seen low-power virtual machines have issues with >20 execution groups.