AWA: Periodic gaps of 14-16 milliseconds are seen in the timestamps of the log files.

Products

• CA Automic Workload Automation - Automation Engine

Issue/Introduction

When reviewing logs, there can be periods of 14-16 milliseconds seen within the log files similar to the bolded:

20200511/083738.475 - U00003535 DB INFO: 'ODBC_TRACE            = 0'
20200511/083738.490 - U00003532 UCUDB: Checking data source ...

Currently, this is only seen on Windows servers. 

Cause

This is due to a Windows clock timing issue. 

Resolution

After reviewing the combination of Windows and Oracle trace, the findings show that the internal timings are correct and precise; however, the OS does not give the same level of accuracy when writing the timing to the log files. 

There is no performance impact and no gaps in the actual communication between the Automation Engine and the Automation Engine database.

This appears to also relate directly to the OS settings, that can be seen with the Microsoft Sysinternals tool clockres.exe:



You can see in the above example the timer interval directly marks the difference seen in the timing of the log files.