Tractor's queuing engine capable of dispatching over 500 tasks per second. Tractor utilizes proven, open web standards and is highly customizable. Systems administrators can easily add Python extension modules to Tractor-Blades and customize the specifics of how various tasks are executed.
Functionally, Tractor consists of three components:
- The Tractor-Engine maintains the central job queue and dispatches tasks.
- The Tractor-Blade is a Python based execution server running on each remote node.
- The Tractor-Dashboard is a customizable web browser user interface providing centralized control of the Tractor-Engine.
The New Release - Tractor 2
Tractor 2 is a major new release that expands upon the successful Tractor render farm job queuing system. Key features include a deepening of the underlying platform architecture to support new wrangling and management tools as well as a forward-looking API and data features that address custom pipeline integration requirements while providing a robust foundation for additional features in development.
What's New?
- New Tractor Product Layout -- Tractor in now easier to install, maintain, and upgrade.
- Query Tools -- Introducing "tq" the tractor query command line tool. Based on proven Pixar studio tools, query live Tractor data from your terminal shell, from your Python scripts, or from the Dashboard.
- Adaptive Farm Allocations -- Dynamically allocate resources between people or projects using flexible limits.
- Dispatching Tiers -- Organize broad sets of jobs into site-defined priority groups. Create your own!
- Custom Menu Actions -- Create custom dashboard items to invoke centralized scripts.
- Job Authoring API -- Now easily create Job, Task, and Command objects linked together according to your dependency requirements, with Python scripts.
- Simple Engine Discovery -- Setting up Tractor is much simpler, with a new mode that doesn't require manual nameserver (DNS/LDAP) configuration.
- Blade Auto-Update -- A new tractor-blade patch management system can automatically push out new versions to the entire farm.
- Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) support -- A simplified system for password support.
- Privilege Insulation -- Allows Tractor's normal day-after-day operations to assume the appropriate permissions associated with the specific users.
- Dynamic Service Key Advertisement -- Advanced usage cases can now take advantage of "Profiles." For example, blades can offer a selection of capabilities depending on previously launched commands.
- Resource Usage Tracking -- Improved tracking of launched commands with the ability to record CPU, RSS, and VSZ metrics.
- Command Retry History -- A unique tracking record can be created in the job database for every command launch attempt.
- Configuration File Loading -- A streamlined override system can help to clarify which files have been modified from their original "factory settings."
- Task Concurrency Throttle -- Constrain the maximum number of tasks that may run concurrently for any job.
- Automatic Blade Error Throttle -- Prevent blades from picking up new work if they encounter too many errors within a given time interval.
- Job Spooling Improvements -- The many upgrades include faster processing, better error checking, and bundling of required subsystems.
- Full Integration with RenderMan
- RenderMan Studio includes out-of-box support for Tractor to facilitate job submissions directly from a session of Maya. Submit jobs locally or remotely, and monitor them with Tractor's Dashboard. For more information check out the Tractor workflow with RMS.