What the Windchill Configuration Assistant Does
The Windchill Configuration Assistant (WCA) examines system resource information for the server on which Windchill is installed and then calculates recommended values for Windchill properties to take maximum advantage of available memory and CPU resources. Additionally, the Windchill Configuration Assistant can recommend configuration changes for the Embedded Servlet Engine (formerly know as Tomcat).
Initial Windchill Configuration Assistant Run
The PTC Solution Installer (PSI) installs the Windchill Configuration Assistant and then runs the assistant after base data is loaded. The assistant runs without manual intervention and you cannot disable this run. However, if you do not load the base data with PSI, the assistant does not run. If the assistant has not run, the following messages are written to the method server startup log:
WARN : wt.server.manager.startup - WINDCHILL CONFIGURATION ASSISTANT <WCA> HAS NOT BEEN USED!
WARN : wt.server.manager.startup - PERFORAMANCE ISSUES MAY RESULT FROM FAILING TO USE WCA!
WARN : wt.server.manager.startup - FOR OPTIMAL PERFORMANCE, WCA SHOULD BE USED PRIOR TO PRODUCT USAGE.
This initial run establishes values for an initial set of properties based on the available memory and CPU resources of the server. These settings establish things like the following:
• Percentage of memory to allocate to the method server heap and server manager heap
• Number of foreground method servers
• Number of background method servers
• Heap sizes
To view the actual property values that are set, you can inspect the values that are stored in a separate XCONF file located at <Windchill>/utilities/wca/conf/windchill/windchillconfigurator.xconf, where <Windchill> is the Windchill installation directory.
The Windchill Configuration Assistant installation adds the ConfigurationRef element to the site.xconf file to establish the link between site-managed property values and those values set as a result running the Windchill Configuration Assistant. In the initial run, these settings are propagated in your system through the use of the site.xconf file.
Manual Windchill Configuration Assistant Runs
Since only base data is loaded before the initial run of the assistant and the base data load includes very few users, groups, or contexts, you should run the assistant again manually when you have any major changes to the number of users, groups, or contexts, or there are major changes to the server. Additionally, the initial run is done during the installation and additional resources that normally would be free are being consumed. Therefore, to obtain an optimal memory allocation calculation, PTC recommends that you manually run the assistant after installation.
When running the Windchill Configuration Assistant, you can have the assistant do any of the following activities:
• Only calculate recommended values for Windchill properties and for Embedded Servlet Engine configuration options.
• Calculate and then propagate the recommended values with no user intervention.
• Calculate and display recommended values, allowing you to accept each recommended value or enter a different value. This interactive mode can be used when just calculating values or when calculating and propagating values.
• Propagate values that have been calculated.
• Restore the original values that were set before the assistant propagated recommended values.
To perform these activities, the assistant accesses information on your server, as well as the property files and configuration files in your installed Windchill environment.
When updating properties files that are managed by the xconfmanager utility (wt.properties, db.properties, and so on), the assistant writes its updated values to a separate XCONF file that is linked to the site.xconf file. This allows you to keep track of Windchill property changes introduced by the assistant and still use the xconfmanager utility to propagate changes.
The assistant automatically creates backup properties files to allow changes to be rolled back. The files in your Windchill environment are only affected if you choose to propagate the recommended values that are calculated.
When you choose to propagate recommended values to Embedded Servlet Engine configuration files, the assistant backs up the appropriate config.properties files and executes one or more ant commands to update settings in your Embedded Servlet Engine environment.
Database Tuning Not Done by the Assistant
The Windchill Configuration Assistant does not access or change any database-specific parameters that are available for tuning the database. For information about tuning your database, see the tuning documentation for your database.