Scaling and configuring the Marketing Automation Engine
The Marketing Automation Engine processes plan and activity enrollments, and will experience higher load as the number of work items increases.
Installation
Use the Sitecore Installation Framework (SIF) or the Sitecore Azure Toolkit (SAT) to install the Marketing Automation Engine. Refer to the installation guide for your version of the platform for more information.
Scaling the Marketing Automation Engine
The following table describes the way you can scale the Marketing Automation Engine:
Scaling option |
Supported |
Notes |
---|---|---|
Combined instance |
Partially |
The Marketing Automation Engine is a worker role and cannot be combined with any other XP services. For example, you cannot combine the Marketing Automation Engine and the xConnect Search Indexer into a single Windows Service or WebJob. |
Standalone instance |
Yes |
You can deploy the Marketing Automation Engine as:
|
High availability and failover |
Yes |
You can fail over to a passive instance of the Marketing Automation Engine or run multiple active instances. Note The Marketing Automation Engine does not have a health check API endpoint. You must use an external tool to monitor the WebJob or Windows Service health. |
Horizontal scaling for load distribution |
Yes |
Multiple instances of the Marketing Automation Engine can process tasks in parallel. All instances must connect to one centrally located Marketing Automation database. |
Performance tuning tasks
Considering the following performance tuning tasks if the Marketing Automation Engine is processing work items too slowly:
-
Vertically scale the Marketing Automation database by increasing the number of DTUs, and be aware that the default DTU allocation in Azure is relatively low.
-
Consider that the xConnect Collection Search service may be a bottleneck in plan processing and requires scaling.
-
Vertically scale the Marketing Automation Engine by increasing the number of pool workers.
-
The Marketing Automation Engine relies heavily on the
InteractionsCache
facet to evaluate conditions that rely on interaction data. Tune the interaction cache facet settings to ensure that the data required by your conditions are available - for example, the defaultMaximumInteractionPeriod
is 30 days. Conditions that rely on data older than 30 days may not evaluate correctly.
We recommend that you monitor load and response times across the platform before choosing to scale a particular role. Performance issues might be the result of a bottleneck elsewhere in the system.
Security configuration tasks
Refer to the Marketing Automation Engine section of the Security guide.
Default topologies and packages
The following tables list the topologies that include the Marketing Automation Engine and how the role is packaged by default.
Sitecore Installation Framework
The Marketing Automation Engine is available in the following default topologies for the Sitecore Installation Framework:
Topology |
Web Deploy Packages |
Description |
---|---|---|
XP Single |
|
The Marketing Automation Engine is bundled with all other XP service roles. The engine is installed as a Windows Service and is physically located in the |
XP Scaled |
|
The Marketing Automation Engine is bundled with the Marketing Automation Operations. The engine is installed as a Windows Service and is physically located in the |
Sitecore Azure Toolkit
The Marketing Automation Engine is available in the following default topologies for the Sitecore Azure Toolkit:
Topology |
Web Deploy Packages |
Description |
---|---|---|
XP Single |
|
The Marketing Automation Engine is bundled with all other XP service roles. The engine runs as an Azure WebJob in the context of the combined application. |
xDB Single | ||
XP Scaled |
|
The Marketing Automation Engine is bundled with Marketing Automation Operations. The engine runs as an Azure WebJob in the context of the Marketing Automation Operations application. |
xDB Scaled |