Using the BatchServe Server
Related Articles: BatchServe Main Page - Using the BatchServe Server - Jobs Page - Submit Page - Edit Jobs Page - Edit Render Options Page - Task Detail Page - Task Display Page - Display Clients Page - Client Information Page - Login Page - Admin Page - Using the BatchServe Client
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Overview
Using the BatchServe server consists mainly of managing the processing jobs submitted by users, and the clients that are processing the jobs. Below is a quick overview of user, client, group, and job characteristics.
Users and Administrators
BatchServe uses it's own set of users and user permissions, which is different from the operating system's list of users. You can create two types of user:
- Users are allowed to submit jobs and manage any jobs that they’ve submitted. This includes the ability to manage job tasks, start, stop, and delete jobs and tasks, and edit job options.
- Administrators have full access to the BatchServe server. They can do all of the things that regular users can do, but for any job rather than only those jobs that they’ve submitted. Administrators can also:
- Add, remove, and manage users and groups.
- Change the group to which users and client machines belong.
- Grant administrative privileges to, or revoke them from other users.
- Control client machines remotely (setting clients to accept or refuse jobs for example).
- Perform maintenance tasks like cleaning the client tables and job tables.
Clients
A Client is an individual machine that is part of the processing farm. Each client belongs to a single group and will request the jobs from the system based on its queue behavior.
Queue Behavior
Each Client uses its queue behavior to decide which jobs it should be processing and in what order. To set the client’s queue behavior, select one or more clients by checking the boxes next to the Id field, select a rule from the drop-down menu, and click the Set Rule button.
There are currently four different behaviors:
| Rule | Description |
|---|---|
| Refuse All Jobs | Takes the client offline. |
| Accept Jobs from Group Only | Allows the client to accept jobs from its group only. |
| Accept Jobs from Group First, Then Others | Allows the client to accept jobs from other groups when its own group's queue is empty. |
| Accept Only My Jobs | Allows the client to only accept jobs when the Windows user that the BatchServe Client service is running as is the same as the BatchServe User used to submit the job.
For this setting to work properly, the users created in the BatchServe database have the same names as their corresponding Windows users. |
Groups
Groups are used to categorize and manage the resources of the processing farm. For example if you have multiple projects to deliver, you could allocate a certain amount of resources to each project, based on which group the project belonged to. Each client machine can only belong to a single group, but users can have permission to submit to multiple groups.
Jobs and Tasks
A job is a series of tasks that share a common set of parameters. For example, rendering all the frames of a given render pass is a job. A job belongs to a group and has a priority setting which determines its priority in the system.
A task is the smallest component of a job that can be distributed to a single client machine. For a rendering job, a task is a single frame since individual frames can usually be rendered in parallel by multiple clients. Each task of a given job generates a new file, usually an image.
Job Type
BatchServe can accept several different types of job. Based on the job type, each client machine will start a different client application to process the job.
| Job Type | Description |
|---|---|
| XSI Render | Rendering directly from an XSI scene. |
| XSI Script | Execute a script on a scene with the option of submitting the output scene for rendering once the script is run. |
| XSI Composite | Render the XSI FX Tree FileOutput operators. |
Job and Task Status
Jobs and the tasks they are composed of can have different processing status. There are 6 different status types, each with its own color code:
| Status (Color) | Description |
|---|---|
| Ready (Cyan) | Job or task is in the queue and can be picked up by active clients. |
| In Progress (Blue) | Processing has started. |
| Stopped (Orange) | Job or task is removed from the queue and is no longer active. |
| Error (Red) | Processing failed. |
| Waiting (Yellow) | Job or task is in the queue, but is not currently processing or available for processing. For example, if a job or task is cancelled, it is not available for processing and cannot be picked up by active clients. |
| Completed (Green) | Processing completed successfully. |
