Configure the SystemLink Forwarding Interval

Updated May 5, 2025

Reported In

Software

  • SystemLink

Issue Details

Is it possible to configure the SystemLink Store and Forward service forwarding interval? Are there any considerations for what value to set?

Solution

The forwarding service runs as a background service on the client at a configurable interval. The default interval is 60 seconds. Transactions in the store are assigned a timestamp of when they were sent to the store. At each interval, the service will process all transactions in the store up to the timestamp matching when the interval started minus 10 seconds. The 10 seconds is a grace period for transactions that have been sent to the store but have not yet arrived.

To configure the forwarding interval:

1. Open "C:\ProgramData\National Instruments\Skyline\Config\Forwarding.json" in a text editor.
2. Modify the PollingIntervalMilliseconds value to a smaller value such as 30000 or a larger value such as 120000.

  • Setting the value too low can cause performance issues for the server, as the forwarding service is less able to take advantage of batching transactions it sends to the server.

3. The forwarding service will need to be restarted for the change to take effect.

  • If you have administrator permissions for the system, you can open the Windows Services Manager (type “Services” into the Start Menu) and restart "NI SystemLink Forwarding Service". Otherwise, you can restart the system.

Additional Information

On clients where transactions are produced at a high rate, the default forwarding interval may be too long. In these cases, the Forwarding Service is unable to keep up with incoming transactions and the store grows over time. The symptom of this is that results take a long time to appear on the server, particularly for clients that have been running tests continuously for a long time. Reducing the forwarding interval may improve its ability to keep up.