Bot Scalibility

[HarshilMehta]

Hi, 

I am trying to understand what is the max Number of Processes and/or object we can have in Blue Prism? 
I know that scalibility capacity of Blue Prism is about 500 - 1000, so is this number of processes/objects or actual runtime resources?

Appreciate any help with this confusion. 

Regards,
Harshil

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Harshil Mehta
Solution Designer
Deloitte
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[jegendra]

Hi Harshil.

Generally, a single Application Server able to handle 50 - 100 Runtime Resources.
The maximum number of processes/objects is hard to determine due to the following factors.

• The hardware specification (Hard disk, CPU, RAM) of the individual workstations and server
• Logging levels of the each processes
• Database server specification and configuration types
• Network Infrastructure and latency

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Jega Avinasinathan
Customer Support Engineer
Blue Prism
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[HakanEngman]

Hi Harshil,

I could not say that this is a hard limit, but you are totally correct. Things start to get quite slow when working in the BP application when the number of Processes and objects count go north of 850 - 1000. This is stated in diffrent documents over at BluePrism. One cure is to implement Teams, to logically split the P&V count into smaller chunks. Another option would be to create multiple databases and present them to different developer groups. (split into several environments.)

If you go to the supportpages and search for "Why is my interactive client running slowly" - there you find a lot of useful info.

All the best,
Håkan 

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Hakan Engman
Automation engineer
Teliacompany.com
Europe/Stockholm
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[SteveWaters]

It's a bit difficult to come up with a hard number because so much depends on the environment and the actual Processes/Objects.  How the Processes and Objects are designed will directly impact the scalability.  The Database infrastructure; CPU, Memory, and the physical storage will impact performance.  I generally recommend SSD or similar configurations. 

At large scales the Communication Mode you are using can have an impact.  The default, WCF with Message Encryption, is processed as part of the .NET stack.   Consider using WCF with Transport Encryption.  This will offload the encryption/decryption from .NET.   This will require certificates but will significantly perform better. 

Also consider using Multi-Teams so that not all Processes and Objects are being rendered by all of the Development/Interactive Clients. 

Lastly, most environments are virtualized, have a good understanding of what is going on at a physical level.  It doesn't matter how much capacity you have at a virtual level if the physical resources are heavily utilized.

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Steve Waters
Platform Consultant
Blue Prism Professional Services
America/Chicago
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[ChadDokmanovich]

​I don't believe that the number of objects and processes is that important when it comes to scalability. we have over 1000 processes/objects in an environment with a small number of BOTs and the env runs fine. In another env where we have about 30 active BOTs and 100 connected, the env runs like a dog (a dog with with 2 legs.)

The objects are loaded once. Once loaded, the BOT has an ridiculously overly-chatty conversation with the app server/database. That's where you run into issues.

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Chad Dokmanovich
IT Architect
Fin IT
America/New_York
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[HakanEngman]

Quick question. 

Do you have any numbers on the improvement going from .NET secure --> WCF w Transport Encryption?  ( ~nn% quicker.. )

We tried but the performance was down and the word out on internet was only saying the same thing. Maybe we did not get it right. Could it be that the connection negotiate methods and that is the reason that we get a not so good outcome. I presume that this is the way Microsoft is going, so it really feels like it's a good move, run WCF.

A example would be exceptionally good.

Thx
Håkan 

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Hakan Engman
Automation engineer
Teliacompany.com
Europe/Stockholm
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[SteveWaters]

We don't have specific metrics because there are so many variables but for environments where there is a lot of communication between the App Server and Runtime Resources/Interactive Clients it can be significant.  I've seen about a 20% improvement.  If I was running over 100 RR's and Several Interactive Clients I'd strongly consider consider using WCF with Transport Encryption.   Note that with encryption certificates you can use Wildcards for the Runtime Resources.

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Steve Waters
Platform Consultant
Blue Prism Professional Services
America/Chicago
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[HarshilMehta]

Hi Guys, 

Thank you so much for prompt responses. This totally makes sense. We already have 600+ objects/processes in dev environment with over 50 developers working and more going to add in near future. We will have problem splitting teams and database as lot of our work is reused, since we are working on one single CRM application with over 100s of sub processes. The best bet for us would be split Application Servers and/or improve the infrastructure. 

I will talk with team next week and understand the current state of infrastructure. Based on that we will take next step. 

Question: Will multiple application server environment help? Also, I am thinking out of the box solutions too.. like can mirroring database help in any way to reduce load on database server?  Never heard about it but it just a thought. I am not sure how it will work with Blue Prism. Appreciate any thoughts on this. 

Sincerely, 
Harshil

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Harshil Mehta
Solution Designer
Deloitte
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[VivekGoel]

Blue Prism Architecture can support upto 100 run time resources per application server. Practically, it's always good to have 1 Application server per 50 Run time resources.

Blue Prism licensing is not limited/bound  to number of processes/objects that you build. You can build 1000's of processes/objects even if you have just 1 license.


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Vivek Goel
RPA Architect
Asia/Singapore
+6594554364
https://www.rpatools.com/
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