Agents

Agents are process managers and workers that run in the background of Relativity to complete jobs that you or another user scheduled in your environment. Different agents exist for each type of job. To run a job, you must have the agent for that job type installed in the resource pool to which your workspace is assigned. For example, you must have at least one Branding Manager agent and one Production Manager agent to run a production in Relativity.

Relativity agents are installed to your agent server during the Relativity installation process. You can have multiple agent servers in your Relativity environment, but one server generally functions as your primary agent server, which stores a full set of agents, and possibly an additional agents that support multiple installation. Depending on the agent type, you may add multiple instances of it to a secondary agent server.

In the Agents tab, you can manually add an agent type to a server to enable and/or improve the performance of a number of Relativity features.

Note: Relativity developers can also build custom agents to handle scheduled jobs. See the Build agents for more information.

This page contains the following information:

See these related pages:

Agent installation requirements

The installation requirements for Relativity agents include:

  • Installation drive - Relativity installs agents in the following directory by default: [Installation drive]:\Program Files\kCura Corporation\Relativity\Agents\Processing.
  • Total agents per server - a default Relativity installation includes a set of core feature agents. You can install additional agents on a Relativity server but the total number of additional agents shouldn't exceed the number of processor cores available on the server.

    Note: You need to ensure that each server has the required minimum number of processor cores. For minimum hardware requirements, see System requirements.

  • Agent instances - the recommended number of instances of each Relativity agent vary per feature and per environment setup. You should run at least one agent of each type in your environment. For a description of each agent and the recommended number of instances, see the List of agents.

Note: If you're working in a large environment and need agent use recommendations to manage a large database, contact Relativity Client Services.

List of agents

Relativity supports multiple agents to execute a variety of different processes. These agents can be divided into different categories based on the number of an agent type allowed per environment, the location where the agents run, and the number of type of resources that they require. The different categories of Relativity agents include:

Single agent per environment

For specific Relativity agent types, you are required to add one agent per environment. These agents execute during the off-hours that you configure for them to run. In addition, they require minimal resources so you run these agents on a virtual server that has four CPUs and four GB of RAM. If you don't meet these minimal requirements, your Relativity environment may experience a performance impact. These agents aren't specific to a resource pool and are available across your Relativity environment.

Note: If you add more than one of the agents in the following list, your Relativity application may not work properly or key components may not function properly. If you delete any of these agents, Relativity displays warning messages.

For the following agent types, Relativity requires a single agent per environment:

Definitive number of agents per resource pool

For specific Relativity agent types, you are required to add one agent per resource pool. These agent types are grouped into the following categories:

  • Job coordinators - these agent coordinate work that other processes perform. You can add multiple worker agents to a resource pool but usually only one job coordinator agent.
  • Worker-managers - these agents manage the worker agents. You only add one manager agent to each resource pool on a server. Your server doesn't require any dedicated resources for them, since manager and worker agents don't run in performance-intensive operations at the same time.

Note: You must include one of agents in the following table per resource pool. If a resource pool doesn't include one of these agents, key Relativity components may not function properly. You may not receive an error message if the resource pool doesn't include each of these agents.

For the following agent types, Relativity requires one of these agents per resource pool:

Scalable agents

Relativity includes agents that you can scale to the appropriate number for your environment needs. You can add any number of these agents, but you must include at least one per resource pool. Depending on your environment, you may need more than one agent. For example, you may need several worker agents to handle very large documents or Data Grid jobs. You can run these agents on a server with one CPU core per agent, and 1 GB of RAM. You may want to double these memory requirements to accommodate heavy workloads in your Relativity environment.

For the following agent types, Relativity requires at least one agent per resource, but you also have the option of adding multiple agents depending on your current needs:

Web agents

For specific Relativity agent types, you are required to add one agent per web server. If you add more than one of the agents in the following list, your Relativity application may not work properly.

If you experience the following issues, verify that these agents are running in your installation:

  • Custom pages aren't working properly - verify that the Custom Page Deployment Manager is running.
  • Poor application performance - verify that the Platform Status agent is running.

For the following agent types, Relativity requires one agents per web server:

Isolated scalable agents

Relativity includes isolated scalable agents which you can customize for your environment needs. This type of agent needs to be on its own agent server with no other Relativity agents on the server. These agents are multi-threaded and will use all resources on the server when needed. Depending on your environment, you may wish to scale the server up for better performance. Monitor both CPU and RAM during normal usage as well as during jobs. If needed, add more CPU and RAM to the server. You may also add another server with another agent by itself. You can add any number of these agents, but you must include at least one per resource pool.

Agents change log

This change log summarizes changes made to agents.

Agent name Change Description of change Version
Agent name Change Description of change Version
Analytics Core ARM Manager Added Orchestrates the process of moving Analytics data using ARM. The corresponding worker is Analytics Core ARM Worker. Server 2021
Analytics Core ARM Worker Added Responsible for moving Analytics conceptual and classification indexes using ARM. Server 2021
PDF Manager Agent Added Responsible for configuring the necessary artifacts for a newly created PDF job and also batching larger PDF jobs into smaller units in the mass PDF operations. This agent runs every 5 seconds by default, and should not be modified. If the Australian workflow is enabled in the instance, the PDF manager can also delete PDFs stored in Relativity. Server 2021
PDF Worker Agent Added Responsible for the document/image to PDF conversion. It will also do the packaging of results into a ZIP/Portfolio/Single PDF if Download is selected for mass PDF operations. This agent runs every 5 seconds by default and should not be modified. Server 2021
Active Learning Synchronization Manager Removed This agent was removed in Relativity 10.0.318.5. 10.0.318.5
Imaging Manager Added The agent immediately restarts itself if something fails. Should have its interval set to 60 minutes. 9.7.229.5
Distributed Job Manager Modified This agent now creates and coordinates tasks for jobs that act across multiple databases. This agent is currently used only for adding and removing users from groups. 9.6.50.31
Distributed Job Worker Modified This agent now executes tasks created for jobs that act across multiple databases. This agents is currently used only for adding and removing users from groups. 9.6.50.31
Active Learning Manager Added Responsible for managing the documents in the review queues in Active Learning Projects. 9.6.50.31
Active Learning Synchronization Manager Added Manages the reporting statistics for Active Learning Projects. 9.6.50.31
Imaging Request Agent Added Responsible for performing background tasks when any imaging request is submitted via mass imaging, image on the fly, or imaging set. 9.5.342.116
Distributed Job Manager Added Reserved for future development purposes. 9.5.342.116
Distributed Job Worker Added Reserved for future development purposes. 9.5.342.116
Secret Agent Added The agent is reserved for future use. 9.5.342.116
Analytics Categorization Manager Modified Renamed to Relativity Analytics Categorization Manager. 9.5.69.85
Analytics Index Progress Manager Modified Renamed to Relativity Analytics Index Progress Manager. 9.5.69.85
Content Analyst Cluster Manager Modified Renamed to Relativity Analytics Cluster Manager. 9.5.69.85
Content Analyst Index Manager Modified Renamed to Relativity Analytics Index Manager. 9.5.69.85
Data Grid Worker Modified Lockout period duration is now 1 minute instead of 15 minutes. 9.5.69.85
Integration Points Manager Added Monitors Integration Points jobs to see if they are in good health, as well as perform some maintenance tasks, such as purging data from deleted jobs. 9.5.253.62