Is there a Native setting in Deadline for randomizing Job start by randomly delaying the startup of a job?
I know there is the option to “load balance” the aux files but now that we are cloud rendering (and in general have bigger farms) I want to make sure my file servers are not pounded for the same file by 80 machines at the same time.
If not native I might just make a Quick Delay Event but would be good to have such option in Deadline Natively or as an expansion to the aux file delays.
You could add a machine limit with a set percentage. For example:
This will make sure that there are at most 10 machines with a task with less than 5% progress. The assumption here is that by the time we’ve made it past 5% we’re done hitting the file server and can allow a new machine to get started up.
The issue with the aux file balancing is that if your file references aren’t listed in there (which at this point they usually are not) it’s only going to be managing the scene file. And that’s assuming you’re submitting the scene file with the job.
Thanks Justin,
unfortunately Mantra doesn’t really progress until all assets are loaded (or at least, it takes ages for it to start reporting ALF_progress) so I think I may look into a event that picks a random delay.
Thanks though, I’m sure the above solution works for some things! 
