For better scalability, ease of use, and faster background processing, use job scheduler and queue processor rules instead of agents in scenarios that previously required agents, such as service-level agreements, sending daily emails, or queuing items.

Although you can still use agents, a warning is displayed if you try to create an agent.

Job scheduler and queue processor rules also facilitate the management of multiple nodes because you do not have to maintain the instances of Rule-Agent-Queue and Data-Agent-Queue that are combinations of multiple agent rules.

Job scheduler versus agents

Job scheduler rules replace advanced agents for recurring or scheduled tasks such as sending emails on weekdays.

Job scheduler rules simplify item scheduling because you configure a single job scheduler rule instead of selecting a standard agent or an advanced agent.

To manage your scheduled tasks and jobs, configure a single job scheduler rule. To replace an existing advanced agent with a Job Scheduler rule, see Replacing an agent with a Job Scheduler rule.

Queue processor versus agents

Queue processor rules replace standard agents for queue management and asynchronous processing. When queuing your items, you can choose between standard and dedicated queue processor rules.

You can use standard queue processor rules as a default rule for queuing your items. For standard asynchronous processes, such as submitting each status change to an external system, you do not need to configure any additional rules.

For more advanced tasks that require vertical and horizontal scaling, such as inbound batch file processing, create dedicated queue processor rules. Select the number of threads for vertical scaling and the number of nodes for horizontal scaling. For example, if you have available resources on a node, increase the number of threads on this node to utilize resources and get the same throughput. When you select the number of threads, this number is multiplied by the number of nodes. For example, if you have three nodes for background processing and you set the number of threads to 3, then you have nine threads for background processing. If you have a lot of nodes for background processing, distribute the work by increasing the number of nodes.

Queue processor rules provide greater flexibility than agents do. Queue processor rules enhance the performance of background processing because you can select dedicated threads to process only a specific action, and you can control the number of threads and the node types on which the processing runs.

Queue processor rules also simplify configuration. Instead of selecting one of many available options for agents, you can use the default standard queue processor rules or you can create dedicated queue processor rules for more complex operations.

Queue processor rules provide better performance than agents because you do not have to queue your items to a database.

For more information about job scheduler and queue processor rules, see Job scheduler, Queue processor.