Specify the maximum amount of time a task should run

Problem

You want to limit how long a task runs.

Solution

Set the TaskExecutionTimeout option on the job to the maximum amount of time for which a task should run. The value is expected to be in milliseconds.

If a task runs longer than the time specified, the task will be canceled and its task status will be TimedOut. The host process will be terminated immediately.

Copy

using System;
using System.Threading;
using AGI.Parallel.Client;
using AGI.Parallel.Infrastructure;

namespace CodeSamples
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            using (IJobScheduler scheduler = new ClusterJobScheduler("localhost"))
            {
                scheduler.Connect();
                Job job = scheduler.CreateJob();

                // For example, specify to let the tasks run for 20 seconds.
                job.TaskExecutionTimeout = 20000;

                Task task = new LongRunningTask();
                job.AddTask(task);
                job.Submit();
                job.WaitUntilDone();

                Console.WriteLine("TaskStatus = {0}", task.TaskStatus);
           }

           /*
            * The output of the application should resemble:
            * TaskStatus = TimedOut.
            */
        }

        [Serializable]
        class LongRunningTask : Task
        {
            public override void Execute()
            {
                // For example, sleep forever. If TaskExecutionTimeout was not specified, this task would run forever.
                Thread.Sleep(Timeout.Infinite);
            }
        }
    }
}

Discussion

By default a task can run indefinitely until it completes or is canceled. This behavior can be changed for scenarios where the task can run for a variable amount of time and a hard limit on the maximum time it can run is needed. This problem arises often when working with unpredictable data sets.

Reference

JobTaskExecutionTimeout