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Pulse User Guide

Deadline Pulse is a server application that runs on your Deadline Repository machine. It can reduce the load on your network by acting as a proxy between the Slaves and the Deadline Repository. As a result, the time a Slave waits between job searches can be greatly reduced, and the refresh rate of the Monitor is faster and more consistant. If you have more than 100 machines in your render farm, it is recommended that you run Deadline Pulse.

When Pulse is not running, the Slaves themselves check for jobs in the Repository. So if Deadline Pulse is shutdown or terminated for any reason, Deadline will continue to function as normal, but without the performance boost. This maintains the level of robustness that users of Deadline have become accustomed to.

Deadline Pulse also controls the Power Management feature. If you wish to make use of this feature without having Pulse act as a proxy between the Slaves and the Deadline Repository, simply leave the Pulse Host Name Or IP Address setting blank in the Pulse Settings, which are described below.

Before Pulse can act as a proxy between the Slaves and the Deadline Repository, you need to configure it via the Repository Options in the Deadline Monitor in Super User mode by selected Tools -> Configure Repository Options. Simply scroll to the Pulse Settings and specify the following settings:

  • Pulse Host Name Or IP Address: the host that Deadline Pulse will run on. Can be a Machine Name or IP Address. Leave blank to disable this feature (default).
  • Pulse Job Scan Interval: the number of seconds between Pulse job scans. After each scan, Pulse will distribute jobs to any Slaves that are currently connected.
  • Pulse Listening Port: the port that Deadline Pulse will listen on. Default is 5146.
  • Pulse Message Timeout Milliseconds: The number of milliseconds in which messages being sent to/from Pulse must complete before a timeout occurs.
  • Power Management Check Interval: The number of seconds between Pulse power management checks.
  • Repository Disk Space Email Account: The account to send notifications to when the repository machine is running out of disk space.
  • Repository Disk Space Limit: If the repository machine has this much space left (in MB) or less, an email is sent to the corresponding account. Set to 0 to disable this feature.

Now scroll to the Slave Delays section and specify the Delay Between Pulse Polls setting. This is 10 seconds by default, but you can increase this if you find that Pulse can't handle the amount of requests being sent by the slaves. We have 200 machines in our farm here at Frantic Films, and the 10 second default setting works just fine.

Options Menu Options:

  • Hide When Minimized: On Windows, Pulse is hidden when minimized, but can be restored using the Pulse icon in the system tray.
  • Minimize On Startup: Starts Pulse in the minimized state.

Control Menu Options:

  • Search For Jobs: If Pulse is between job searches, this option can be used to force Pulse to search for a job immediately.
  • Perform Repository Scan: If Pulse is between repository scans, this option can be used to force Pulse to perform a repository scan immediately.
  • Perform Power Management Check: If Pulse is between power management checks, this option can be used to force Pulse to perform a power management check immediately.