Agents getting more and more time difference

Products

• CA Automic Workload Automation - Automation Engine

Issue/Introduction

OS Agents keep increasing time difference with Automation Engine.

There is no issue with the time of the operating systems.

Environment

Release : 12.1

Component : AUTOMATION ENGINE

Cause

How is the timediff calculation currently working?

• server sends EXQUERY with his current timestamp to agent
• agent responds with EXINFO (adds server timestamp and his agent timestamp)
• server checks for difference of 'server timestamp' and 'agent timestamp' (can be found in ucvarexr.cbl:v-exinfo)
• when the difference is bigger than the current one known
• the timediff includes the time the message travels to the agent and the agent needs to process SRVQUERY message.
• so it's quite volatile because network traffic will have different latency
• currently the timediff is only changed when it's bigger than the current timediff known
• timediff handling only works, if parameter srvquery=0 (otherwise CP is handling this message and has no access to ACTEX table)
• new agents with TLS do not have this EXQUERY/EXINFO handling anymore

It's a drawback of the previous code, we'll make a change of behavior.

Resolution

Workaround:

Restart Agent

 

Solution:
Update to a fix version listed below or a newer version if available.

Fix version:
Component(s): Automation.Engine 

• Automation.Engine 12.1.8 (Planned release 2020-05-11)
• Automation.Engine 12.2.6 (Planned release 2020-06-15)
• Automation.Engine 12.3.3 (Planned release 2020-06-29)

Additional Information

A problem has been fixed where the time difference of an agent was only updated when the value increased. Now it is updated when the value changes by at least 30 seconds.