ATF Test Generator creates massive update sets - risk of moving to prod instances.

[Kelly Logan]

After running the ATF Test Generator several times in our sub-prod instance as part of various tests, we noticed that our update set retrieval in production was slowed significantly (often taking ten or more minutes). We realized that when a suite is generated, it creates a similarly massive update set that is set to Complete automatically, so the pipeline was being clogged and this is introducing the risk of accidentally committing an entire test suite to production.

I looked through system properties and while there are several (51) sn_atf properties, none seem to concern the creation of the update set. I'm guessing the update sets are used to track work and are probably necessary, but I think it would be more appropriate to set them to "Ignore" status when done so they don't get retrieved accidentally. 

Anyone else have any more information on this? If there is no solution from ServiceNow, we are considering adding a business rule to the update set table that will set it to "Ignore" automatically after it is completed.

[Kelly Logan · Accepted solution]

Went to create a support ticket and found this known issue that is related: 

KB1522506: ATF Test Generator and Cloud Runner: Update Sets are not always set to "Complete" state 

It notes that there is an extra system property that can be added:

Workaround

Add the System Property [sn_atf_tg.generation.create_separate_update_set] and set it to "false" to prevent the creation of Update Sets.