Best practices for DB Trimming (via Arcotcommon.ini

Products

• CA Advanced Authentication
• CA Strong Authentication
• CA Risk Authentication

Issue/Introduction

CA Strong Authentication tables need to be trimmed for optimal performance as these tables may grow to very large size. There are two ways of trimming the underlying tables. 

1. Manual DBprune tool -  This is a manual tool that can be run from the command prompt.  

https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/symantec-security-software/identity-security/advanced-authentication/9-1/administrating/administrating-ca-risk-authentication/administration-tools/remove-outdated-audit-logs-from-your-database-with-the-dbprune-tool.html

2. Automatic DB trimming tool via arcotcommon.ini - This  is a automatic trimming configuration via arcotcommon.ini

This document will highlight the best practices around the Automatic DB trimming tool. 
Automatic DB trimming is very essential but if not scheduled at a slow time and not configured properly it may not lead to optimal performance gains. 

Environment

CA Strong Authentication and CA Risk Authentication Version 9.x. 

Resolution

There are few very important best practices to be aware of. 

Best Practice #1 - For both the tools schedule the trimming in a slow time (that is, not during peak processing times)
Best Practice #2 - Automatic DB Trimming should be configured with Disable = false (DB Trimming = True) ONLY on ONE arcotuds sever via arcotcommon.ini section where Disable=false indicates automatic DB Trimming is required. 

======================================= Sharing the section of arcotcommon.ini ==========================
db/logtrimming] 
RetainDays = 90 
MaxRetainedRows = 1000000 
RunFrequencyMins = 1440 
NoArchive = false 
Disable = false 
============================================== =================================================
Best Practice #3 -  Note that any restart of Arcot UDS with "Disable=False"  starts DB trimming as the part of the restart. So, if the restart of Arcot UDS sever was unscheduled then please ensure that DB trimming is disabled with "Disable=true".  Then to turn on DB trimming with recurring frequency configure the "Disable=false" and  "RunFrequencyMins=nnnn" parameters  and restart the server at a slow processing time. 

Additional Information

None,.