Add a server to NPrinting environment?

[waterscg]

My NPrinting Windows Server is coming under increasingly heavy usage. Is it possible to scale up NPrinting; i.e., add a NPrinting Windows Server to the environment?

[Lucas_Gatling]

@waterscg  Good afternoon. Not sure what you mean by add another Windows Server to the environment. However, you can add another Nprinting Engine to the Nprinting environment that would be on another Windows server. Take a look at this Nprinting Scalability Whitepaper. It should answer the performance questions you may have. 

Let us know if that helps!

[waterscg]

Thanks. I did read that whitepaper but it wasn't clear how the integration of another NPrinting engine -- whether on the same Windows Server or on another Windows Server -- would work. For instance, how is it determined which engine an initiated publish task will be assigned to? Is there some inferred load-balancing at work?

[Ruggero_Piccoli · Accepted solution]

Hi,

You can increase the hardware resources on the server in use. You can install only one Qlik NPrinting Server but many Engines. So you cannot add another Qlik NPrinting Server that works in parallel with the first one but you can add an Engine. In each computer you can install only one Engine but it is not a limiti because the Engine is multithread. This in short but for more details you can check the official help site at:

- https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/May2023/Content/NPrinting/DeployingQVNprinting/Multi-engine-de...

- https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/May2023/Content/NPrinting/DeployingQVNprinting/Performance.htm

Please note that the bottle neck could be the connected QlikView or Qlik Sense server and that the generation time of reports depends also on the structure of the templates.

Best Regards,

Ruggero

[Frank_S]

@waterscg 

I will add to Ruggero's comments that you may also want to:

1. Ensure your reports are not causing bottlenecks: complex or damaged (missing/changed NPrinting tags or corrupted, damaged) reports might also cause this.

Solution: test each report individually to ensure they are healthy (using the entity checker in the report to ensure the tags are ok and right click on each table to ensure every table is up to date. Choose 'update' if columns have changed). Report can become damaged particularly when opening with a Designer that is not the same version as the NP server. 

2. Simplify your source QVW or QVW: 

• ensure no unsupported items are in use and 
• reduce the size of the QVW or QVF when able (only use the years of data needed for reporting purposes. 
• Make a duplicate app for reporting purposes if needed. Reduce and remove from the copied app.

Then if all above is ok:

3. Add additional dedicated NPrinting engines. Dedicated NPrinting Server & Engine Service Accoun... - Qlik Community - 1716056

4. Professional Services: You may want to consider Qlik Professional services to manage the above project for you.

Kind regards...

[waterscg]

@Ruggero_Piccoli @Frank_S   Thanks for the replies. Among our hundreds of reports / publish tasks, a few complex ones take hours to complete. We've analyzed them and have determined the bottleneck appears to be on the NPrinting side.

So to my one physical server having the NPrinting Server and an NPrinting Engine ... I can add a second physical server having an NPrinting Engine ... and the NPrinting Server will automagically distribute work between the two engines?

[Frank_S · Accepted solution]

No Worries @waterscg 

Please know that you may only have ONE NP (windows) server and multiple NP (windows server) engines associated with it as mentioned by @Ruggero_Piccoli

• Each NP server is it's own environment. 
• There is no load balancing between separate NP servers. 
• On NP server to one or more NP engines.

But if you mean add another Windows Server with NP engine installed on it and it points to your original single NP server, then yes you may do that to spread the load from your single NP server to one more more NP engine computers.

Hope this helps to clarify.

[Ruggero_Piccoli]

Hi,

Yes you can add a second computer with installed another Qlik NPrinting Engine https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/May2023/Content/NPrinting/DeployingQVNprinting/Multi-engine-de...

After installation remember to activate the second Engine in the Web Console.

Best Regards,

Ruggero

[waterscg]

The page you listed is no longer valid. Can you list its replacement?

[Ruggero_Piccoli]

Hi,

Strange, it still is the same at https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/May2023/Content/NPrinting/DeployingQVNprinting/Multi-engine-de... . You can delete the part of the URL after the question mark sign. It is the chapter "Multi-engine deployment" of the official help site https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/May2023/Content/NPrinting/Introduction/Introduction.htm

Best Regards,

Ruggero