Install & License related queries

[SumanthB]

Hi All, 

Can you help me on below queries.

• Is it possible to maintain more than one Blue Prism Application server with Single license?
• If it is not possible to maintain more than one application server with single license , what could be the best way to maintain Dev and Production Environment[Considering all runtime resource shares the same database and able to view both Dev & Production instances]
• Can we maintain more than one Blue-Prism Application servers [in either same server / different server]? If So ,Is it possible to publish the Process from One Application server to another control of Blue-Prism Application server[which are in the same network]
• How many runtime resources can be configured with a single BP license?[Assuming all of the Resources are in the same domain]
• Is it possible to transfer the BP-license from one server to another Server?

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BluePrism developer
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[david.l.morris]

•  Yes you can maintain more than one app server with a single license (I assume here you mean app servers connected to different BP databases)
•  The way you were expecting to have separate environments is correct. For example, Dev should have RRs that connect to a Dev app server which connects to a Dev BP database on which your single license is installed (I didn't mention Load Balancer here just fyi).
•  You can have more than one app server per BP environment and this is not affected by license though having more than one app server per bp environment would be pointless if you have only one license. I suppose it provides a backup app server though.
•  The suggested limitation which is not truly the upper limit is 100 RRs per app server. If you have 2 app servers in one environment then you can have 200 RRs in that environment. However, again, this would be pointless with only one license. This means only one session can run in control room at once.
•  Yes you can use the BP license in all of your environments. In fact, this is how it is done. The 'limit' that BP sets technically does restrict you in Dev, UA, QA, etc., but as far as BP's auditing you for license consumption, only your usage in Production matters. So, the easiest way to make sure you never exceed your limit is to ensure all your production bots/processes run in a single environment (Production). Any running of sessions in the lower environment does not matter. You can max them out at the same time that production is maxed out as long as the lower environments are not fulfilling a production purpose.

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Dave Morris
3Ci @ Southern Company
Atlanta, GA
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[SumanthB]

Thanks for your detail response.

Could you help on below queries 
1) Is there any difference in terms of license, Like Test license and Production licence from Blue-Prism.
2) Could you please elaborate on max-out conditions for both Prod & Test environment. 
3) As per the above response, Can I assume with a single license, I would be able to configure two different app servers one for Dev(Database1)& one for UAT(Database2) with limited Bots.

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Sumanth B
Developer
Cognizant
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[david.l.morris]

1.  No difference. You'll use the exact same license file (.bplicense) when installing the license in any of your environments.
2.  What I meant by 'max out' is if you ran a certain number of concurrent sessions up to the number of your license. For example, you might have a license that allows only 1 concurrent session. You'd max out your license consumption/limit by running a single session of a process on a runtime resource from Control Room. That Blue Prism environment will not allow you to run any more sessions until the first one has completed, terminated, or stopped. This limit applies in any environment (Production or not). The license file/installation itself limits how many sessions can run in Control Room at one time. That means that in Dev you cannot run more than one at a time. And then in Prod you can't run more than one at a time. However, you can run 1 session in Dev and 1 session in Prod at the same time because Blue Prism only considers sessions run in Prod to be of concern. And as I mentioned, you would need to ensure that your production-level processes all run in the production environment even though it is technically possible to run them in Dev for production purposes. If your license limit were 100, then you could run 100 sessions simultaneously in a single environment, such as Production.
3.  Correct, your single license allows you to create as many environments (app server and database and runtime resources and interactive clients etc) as you want. Each Blue Prism environment (database) is entirely silo'd from any other. And the license file is allowed to be installed on as many environments as you want. Granted, you still need to be careful how it is used in those environments but it's fine as long as it's for Dev, QA, UA, etc. purposes. Another thing to note here though is that you could technically create 2 prod databases and install the license on both. But you really should not do this because there's no easy way to ensure you're only running one session at a time across the 2 environments. So, the important thing is that across your entire organization, if you only have a 1-session license, then only 1 session for production purposes is allowed to be run at one time.

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Dave Morris
3Ci @ Southern Company
Atlanta, GA
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[SumanthB]

Thanks Dave. it gives me clear picture on the system.

In Continuation to (2) response, Could you help me better understanding of limitation of runtime sessions
1)As it is possible to configure BluePrism1-Database1, BluePrism2-Database2 ,Etc.... and all use the same single session license. In this case , will there be any limitation to the number of sessions in Control Room. As all the instance does not share the same Database.
2) As per my understanding, Interactive client is for Development purpose , Assume that we have only one license, and configured Blue Prism in 5 different servers(using the single session license). Will there be any limitation to number of concurrent developers to work on Interactive client. 
3) Also, I would like to know if there is any CI/CD process available in Blue-Prism. I could see the deployment is only through export & import and would like to check is there any Auto Dev-Prod deployment is available.

Thanks for your support.

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Sumanth B
Developer
Cognizant
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[david.l.morris]

1.  In your example, BluePrism1 can run 1 session at a time in Control Room. BluePrism2 can run 1 session at a time in Control Room. And BluePrism1's Control Room is not affected by what happens in BluePrism2's Control Room.
2.  If you have a license installed, there's no limit to the number of Interactive Clients you can use. Opening Blue Prism in what we call DEBUG mode (that is, opening Process Studio or Object Studio in order to create/edit processes and objects) is not affected by the license limitation. You can develop, test, and run automations in DEBUG mode as much as you want with as many people/interactive clients as you want. And, just so no one gets confused here in case others read this later, remember that DEBUG mode is not intended for use in Production at all.

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Dave Morris
3Ci @ Southern Company
Atlanta, GA
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[SumanthB]

Thanks Dave.

Can you also help me on 3rd points please

3) Also, I would like to know if there is any CI/CD process available in Blue-Prism. I could see the deployment is only through export & import and would like to check is there any Auto Dev-Prod deployment is available.

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Sumanth B
Developer
Cognizant
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[david.l.morris]

It's possible to accomplish CI/CD, I suppose, but I think it'd be pretty painful to do so. If you have extra personnel to dedicate to making it a solid process then I'd say go for it. Blue Prism can be interacted with through CLI commands.

Go into Blue Prism, press F1, and then search for 'AutomateC.exe' and then look at 'Blue Prism Command Line Options.' There are a few commands missing from this list, such as /setev. So, also look at the list you get when you run the help command in Command Prompt.

"C:\Program Files\Blue Prism Limited\Blue Prism Automate\AutomateC.exe" /help

Effectively what you'd end up using is some combination of /import, /importrelease, /export, /exportrelease, /setev, /createcredential, /updatecredential, etc.

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Dave Morris
3Ci @ Southern Company
Atlanta, GA
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[DarinaHendrycho]

Hi, thank you for you attendance in this discussion it helped me a lot as well.

I have one more further question?  regarding point one

So if I make two databases for two runtimes (as in example 1. above) the processes run on each runtime can overlaped eventhough i have one BP license? and control rooms will be not affected?

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Darina Hendrychova
consultant
EY
Europe/Podgorica
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[david.l.morris]

Yes, they won't affect each other. That's how Blue Prism intends for it to work so that the Development, Test, etc. environments can have sessions running at the same time that Production has sessions running without hitting a license limitation because Blue Prism doesn't charge for Dev/Test use. In all environments, the typical approach is to use the same license. The time when that does not apply is when you have more than one Production environment. It is against the terms of use or license agreement or whatever to allow the license usage to overlap. It's kind of an assumption on Blue Prism's part that all customers will use the licenses correctly.

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Dave Morris
Cano Ai
Atlanta, GA
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