FME Flow: 2025.0

Remote Engines Services

Select Engine Management > Remote Engines Services.

Remote Engines Services allow you to use queues to run jobs on separate, specialized installations of FME Flow that may be closer to your data, while bypassing Queue Control rules. You can install Remote Engines Services and connect to them on servers that are part of your network, available outside your network on accessible endpoints, or in the Cloud, such as Azure Functions, or Google Cloud Functions. Customers of FME Flow Hosted can also connect to Remote Engines Services. Unlike Adding FME Engines on a Separate Machine, Remote Engines Services may be especially useful if you want to run jobs on servers outside your network, while maintaining your primary FME Flow installation behind a firewall.

Capabilities and Limitations

When running jobs on Remote Engines Services, keep in mind the following:

  • FME Engines of Remote Engines Services can run on any type of license, Standard or Dynamic. Multiple engines of both types are supported, depending on licensing terms.
  • Connecting to Remote Engines Services through a proxy is supported.
  • FME Flow queues jobs when a Remote Engines Service is offline, and submits them for processing once they are online.
  • Remote Engines Services can accept workspaces that are registered to run only the Job Submitter Service. Other FME Flow Web Services are not supported.
  • In addition to jobs submitted from the Run Workspace page, Remote Engines Services can run jobs submitted from Run a Workspace automations actions and Schedules.
  • Although Remote Engines Services cannot run jobs submitted directly from Workspace Apps or Run a Dynamic Workspace automations actions, workspaces that contain FMEFlowJobSubmitter transformers can submit jobs to Remote queues, even if those workspaces are invoked from those mechanisms.
  • Remote Engines Services cannot run custom formats or linked transformers.
  • A Remote Engines Service can connect with only one FME Flow instance at a time. Simultaneous connections with multiple FME Flow instances are not supported.

Getting Started with Remote Engines Services

To target a Remote Engines Service to run jobs:

  1. Install a Remote Engines Service on your remote server.
  2. FME Flow Hosted users only: Request a license for a Remote Engines Service.
  3. Create queues (if necessary).
  4. Create a connection to a Remote Engines Service and associate it with one or more queues.
  5. Run the job on one of the specified queues.

Install a Remote Engines Service

Follow the instructions here to install a Remote Engines Service on your remote server. To obtain a Remote Engines Services installer, visit the FME downloads page. Remote Engines Services installers are named beginning with fme-flow-remote-engine-*.

FME Flow Hosted Only: Request a License for a Remote Engines Service

On your FME Flow Hosted instance connection, request a license from the Licensing page, under the Remote Engines Services heading.

Create Queues (if necessary)

You may already have queues that you use to target jobs to FME Engines based on existing Queue Control rules. When specified explicitly in a Run Workspace directive, those same queues can run jobs on Remote Engines Services, effectively bypassing queue control rules. Alternatively, you can create new queues and use those instead. To create new queues, select the Queues tab, and click New.

Create a Remote Engines Service Connection and Associate it with Queues

  1. On the Remote Engines Services tab of the Engine Management page, click Create and complete the following fields:
    • Name: Specify a name of your choice for the Remote Engines Service connection.
    • URL: The URL of the remote server on which the FME Flow Remote Engines Service was installed.
    • Username: admin
    • Password: The password to authenticate the admin account.
    • Queues: The queues to associate with the Remote Engines Service connection. When one of these queues is specified explicitly in a run workspace directive, the job is routed to this connection.
    • Standard Engines: Specify the number of Standard FME Engines you want to start on the Remote Engines Service for running jobs.
      Note  This number is limited to your Licensing terms.
    • CPU Usage Engines: Specify the number of Dynamic (CPU Usage) FME Engines you want to start on the Remote Engines Service for running jobs.
      Note  This number is limited to your Licensing terms.
    • Proxy Enabled: To connect to the Remote Engines Service through a proxy, check this box and complete the following:
      • Host: The proxy server hostname.
      • Port: The port through which communication with the proxy server takes place.
      • No Proxy For: (optional) A list of hostnames and IP addresses that will be accessed through a direct connection, bypassing the proxy. To avoid entering multiple hosts in the same domain, hosts can be prefixed and appended with the wildcard character *.

        • To delimit the list, use commas, semicolons, or press the tab or enter keys. Do not copy-paste a list of entries. To delineate properly in the display, each entry must be added separately.

        Example:

        Note  Specifying localhost does not include, by default, 127.0.0.1 or ::1. To bypass the proxy when the local host is referenced, you must explicitly specify any other expected forms for referencing local traffic.
      • Authentication Required: Click if authentication is required to access the proxy server, and complete the following:
        • Username: The account username for running the proxy server.
        • Password: The password for the proxy server account.
        • Authentication Method: The authentication method used by the proxy server, either Basic, Digest, or NTLM.
  2. (Optional) If the Remote Engines Service is currently online, click Test to ensure the specified credentials are valid.
  3. Click Create.

The Remote Engines Service connection appears on the Engine Management page. You may need to refresh the page until the STATUS icon shows a green check mark.

Run a Job with the Remote Engines Service Connection

From any of the following run workspace scenarios (under Advanced settings), specify the desired Job Queue associated with the Remote Engines Service connection that you want to run the job:

The specified queue overrides the queue that would otherwise be assigned based on queue control rules, and instead routes the job to the Remote Engines Service connection.

Administering Remote Engines Services

Administrators of Remote Engines Services installations can access the Jobs, Logs Folder in Resources, Analytics, Engines, and Queues pages of the Remote Engines Services Web User Interface.

Resetting the Cache

When jobs are submitted to remote engines, FME Flow automatically uploads contents to the Remote Engines Service that are necessary to run the job, including the workspace and its dependencies, such as resources, packages, web connections, web services, and database connections. To clear this cache, select the Remote Engines Service for the cache you want to clear, click Actions, and select Reset Cache.

Resetting the Remote Engines Service Password

You can update the password of a Remote Engines Service user account from the Remote Engines Services page on the primary FME Flow installation.

Click on the Remote Engines Service to open it. On the Editing page, click Change Password. The new password must comply with the Password Policy configuration.

Removing Remote Engines Services

Select the Remote Engines Service you want to remove, click Actions, and select Remove.