Object auto initialization

[SourabhSaha]

I am working on a use case where the workflow is as below:

1. The details of the process (Process Name and its nput Parameters - if any) to be to be triggered will be uploaded to the  Work queue by Object A. The Object A is exposed as web service and is being requested via "Auto Initialization".

2. The Object B will then access the work queue and pick up the process details and triggers the process using Command Line (AutomateC.exe). The object B is also being called using "auto initialization".

My runtime resource is currently capable of running 1 session at a time concurrently. Will I be able to successfully trigger the process using Object B or do we need additional licence.  If so, then why as I am using "auto initialization" for Object B and my understaning is I can run multiple request using Auto Initialization.

[John__Carter]

Hi Soubra

The simple way to think of license utilisation is 'number of Prod sessions running = number of licenses consumed'. It doesn't matter how or what those licenses are running, whether on individual machines or in parallel on the same machine, the licence utilisation is equal to the number of concurrent sessions.

For web services, auto-init determines whether each call to an object is treated as an individual session, or whether a series of calls to an object are handled as one session. Auto-init has no direct connection to licensing, but it is indirectly linked via the number of sessions that may result from web service calls. 

Have a read of this document, it illustrates a number of scenarios to explain run-mode, session concurrency and license utilisation. I think in the scenario you have described 2 licences will be required because auto-init is not a global setting across multiple objects, it's a setting applied to individual objects.

[ewilson]

Hi @SourabhSaha,
​
How are you invoking Object B to pick up the details from the work queue? Is it part of another process that's running on a schedule, or are you also invoking it via a web service call?

Cheers,
Eric

[SourabhSaha]

Hi @Eric Wilson

Yes, we are invoking the Object B via web service call as well which in turn will invoke the Process via Command line (AutomateC.exe)

[SourabhSaha]

Thank you very much @John Carter. I went through the documents and now the concepts have been clear to me. Thank  you for your help and suggestions.

[ewilson]

@SourabhSaha,

Are you working with a trial edition of Blue Prism? If the license you have limits you to no more than 1 concurrent session I imagine that is the case. @John Carter has made some good points above, and the Web Services User Guide he's directed you to includes some valuable information regarding sessions and run-modes.

In your case, if you were to set both Object A and Object B to have a run-mode of Background what I envision happening here is that a new session would be created for each object. When Object B attempts to the start the specific process (pulled from the queue) that would result in another session being created - assuming this process also has a run-mode of Background or Foreground. If the run-mode is Exclusive it will terminate with an error.

Given the restriction on your license, this will not work. Something to understand about auto-initialization is that Blue Prism will not terminate the sessions tied to objects A or B immediately. You may only make a single call to say Object A, but the session will continue to live on for a period of time after that call completes. Eventually, Blue Prism will determine that there have been no new calls to that object and terminate the session. With manual-initialization you could actually control when the session is terminated. However, this still wouldn't work for you because Object B would still be running as it tries to start the process, so at a minimum you would need a license that supports at least 2 concurrent sessions.

Cheers,
Eric​​​

[SourabhSaha]

Thank you @John Carter and @ewilson for the insight and the help. Much Appreciated​​