topic Re: activiti-crystalball getting started in Alfresco Archive

activiti-crystalball getting started

gromar — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 12:54:44 GMT

Hello.as I promised in the following posts:http://forums.activiti.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6081&start=12http://forums.activiti.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5967&start=14I created the first getting started for activiti-crystalball.Topics covered:- The First Simulation Run.- Use simula

Re: activiti-crystalball getting started

gromar — Thu, 23 May 2013 12:54:12 GMT

After some time I've implemented simulation engine (In fact I took activiti process engine and bent it to the simulation engine). Simulation engine in the activiti-crystalball is able to execute simulation runs asynchronously and in parallel. To see the first example of usage please have a look on MonitoringTest. Test uses similar way to start simulation engine ans simulation instance as it is used for activiti process engine and process instances.


  SimulationEngine simulationEngine= SimulationEngineConfigurationImpl.createStandaloneSimulationEngineConfiguration().buildSimulationEngine();

  SimulationInstance simulationInstance = simulationEngine.getRuntimeService().startSimulationInstanceByKey("Monitor escalation", …..);

Simulation experiment tries to answer question:
What is probability of escalation?
Finally answer is:
[img]https://raw.github.com/gro-mar/activiti-crystalball/master/examples/src/test/resources/org/activiti/crystalball/examples/monitoring/images/monitoringTest.png[/img]

Now I can continue in activiti-crystalball getting started. Crystalball is able to answer probability questions.

Questions:
Does anybody have any real use case where simulation can be applied?
How did the discussion about another simulation framework for activiti
http://forums.activiti.org/content/simulation-process-definition
http://sourceforge.net/p/bpm-accelerator/wiki/Home/

finished?

Re: activiti-crystalball getting started

jbarrez — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:08:14 GMT

Which input params did you use to get to the 63%? How do you see users input that data?

Regarding the past discussions: no nothing has come out of that, unfortunately.

Re: activiti-crystalball getting started

gromar — Fri, 24 May 2013 06:36:51 GMT

To answer questions I have to describe simulation instance more.

Simulation instance start javadoc:


/**
 * Starts a new simulation instance 
 * 
 * @param name
 * @param description
 * @param author
 * @param start
 * @param end
 * @param replication
 * @param seed - pseudo random number generator seed.
 * @param simulationConfigUrl - repository service is not copied form activiti engine - claspath resources are used.
 * @return
 */
SimulationInstance startSimulationInstanceByKey(String name, String description, String author, Date start, Date end, int replication, Long seed, String simulationConfigUrl);

SimulationInstance configuration has two sources:
1. process definition (e.g. MortageDemo-1-monitoring.bpmn)


<serviceTask id="rejection_email" name="Send rejection e-mail" activiti:type="mail" sim:behavior="org.activiti.crystalball.simulator.delegate.Noop">
      <extensionElements>
        <activiti:field name="to" expression="to@domain"></activiti:field>
        <activiti:field name="from" expression="from@domain"></activiti:field>
        <activiti:field name="text">
          <activiti:expression><![CDATA[text]]></activiti:expression>
        </activiti:field>
      </extensionElements>
    </serviceTask>

sim:behavior="org.activiti.crystalball.simulator.delegate.Noop" (behavior can be set for user task too).
2. simulationConfigUrl - describes simulation engine behavior. (e.g. mortages-monitoring-h2-context.xml. Simulation configuration sets up simulation engine and simulation process engine - more description below.

MonitoringTest starts simulation instance with 11 simulation runs. Seed 7L takes care about getting always the same results from pseudo random number generator. RuntimeService.startSimulationInstanceByKey persists new SimulationInstance and its SimulationRuns(similar to ProcessInstance - in fact I took activiti process engine and I bent it to the simulation engine with different entities). Each simulation run is Job which is executed asynchronously in parallel (similar to the Job in the process engine).
Simulation run prepares environment (in this case makes copy of live process engine DB to the DB used by process engine (activiti 5.11) used for simulation. Done by simulationRunHelper in mortages-monitoring-h2-context.xml. Following simulationRunHelper is used in BasicSimulationTest config Simulator-context.xml


 <bean id="simulationRunHelper" class="org.activiti.crystalball.simulator.impl.CopySimulationRunHelper">
  <constructor-arg index ="0" value="${tempDir:target}/basicSimulation.h2.db"/>
  <constructor-arg index ="1" value="${tempDir:target}/${simulationRunId:default}.h2.db"/>
 </bean>

SimulationRun starts activiti process engine to simulate process instances execution. Process engine configuration:


 <bean id="simProcessEngineConfiguration" class="org.activiti.spring.SpringProcessEngineConfiguration">
  <property name="dataSource" ref="simDataSource" />
  <property name="transactionManager" ref="simTransactionManager" />
  <property name="databaseSchemaUpdate" value="true" />
  <property name="jobExecutorActivate" value="false" />
  <property name="jobExecutor" ref="simDefaultJobExecutor"/>
  <property name="preParseListeners">
   <list>
    <bean class="org.activiti.crystalball.simulator.parse.SimulationBpmnParseListener"/>
   </list>
  </property>
  <property name="processEngineName" value="${simulationRunId:default}"/>
  <property name="deploymentResources">
   <list>
    <value>org/activiti/crystalball/examples/mortages/MortageDemo-1-monitoring.bpmn</value>
   </list>
  </property>
 </bean>
    
 <bean id="simDefaultJobExecutor" class="org.activiti.crystalball.simulator.processengine.jobexecutor.SimulationDefaultJobExecutor">
  <property name="waitTimeInMillis" value="300000"/>
 </bean>

Simulation process engine has to use simDefaultJobExecutor which runs process jobs in the virtual simulation time - ability to simulate timers.

Answer:
In MonitoringTest case user behavior is described in mortages-monitoring-h2-context.xml. It is possible to describe it in process definition too sim:behavior=.


 <!–  User tasks executors                    –>      
    <bean id="userTaskExecutor" class="org.activiti.crystalball.simulator.executor.impl.RandomUserMapTaskExecutor">
       <constructor-arg index="0" value="300000"/> <!– from 5mins to 1100 sec  –>
       <constructor-arg index="1" value="1100000"/>
       <property name="taskVariablesMap">
        <map>
         <!– TASK preliminary_judgement possibilities –>
         <entry key="preliminary_judgement">
          <list>
           <map>
            <entry key="approved"><value type="java.lang.Boolean">True</value></entry>
           </map>
           <map>
            <entry key="approved"><value type="java.lang.Boolean">True</value></entry>
           </map>
          </list>
         </entry>
         <entry key="final_evaluation">
          <list>
           <map>
            <entry key="ok"><value type="java.lang.Boolean">True</value></entry>
           </map>
           <map>
            <entry key="ok"><value type="java.lang.Boolean">False</value></entry>
           </map>
          </list>
         </entry>
        </map>
       </property>
    </bean>

RandomUserMapTaskExecutor executes user task in uniform probability distribution from 5mins to 18min 20sec. in case of preliminary_judgement or final_evaluation we can set process variable change. User behavior can be played back from the process engine history too.

When 11 simulation runs are finished and SimulationRun results are stored in the DB, ProbabilityGraphGenerator generates process diagram


  ProbabilityGraphGenerator generator = new ProbabilityGraphGenerator();
  generator.generateGraph(simulationEngine.getRuntimeService(), simulationInstance, "mortagedemo-0:1:4", "mortagedemo-0", "activity_exists", System.getProperty("tempDir", "target") + "/monitoringTest.jpg");

Question:
Do you see any issues in this approach?
I would like to know your opinion.

Re: activiti-crystalball getting started

jbarrez — Fri, 24 May 2013 09:40:56 GMT

Looks good. I do like the custom job executor which runs in virtual time, good idea.

One thing I think can be improved: do you mandate the Noop ServiceTask? It would be more useful if you allow to upload any process xml. BUT before you hand them to the simulation engine you swap all the classes with the Noop's (and similar for listeners on execution/task of course).

Another cool thing which every simulation effort must have is of course nice charts 😉

Re: activiti-crystalball getting started

gromar — Fri, 24 May 2013 11:09:43 GMT

do you mandate the Noop ServiceTask?

org.activiti.crystalball.simulator.delegate.Noop is not mandatory for service tasks. Usage of simulation behavior depends on the simulation experiment. How realistic simulation experiment should be to reality? Do we want to use real serviceTasks in simulation - we do not need to use Noop. Do we want to play back execution - use org.activiti.crystalball.simulator.delegate.PlaybackCopyActivityBehavior. It really depends on the simulation experiment how far and realistic simulation should look like.

It would be more useful if you allow to upload any process xml. BUT before you hand them to the simulation engine you swap all the classes with the Noop's (and similar for listeners on execution/task of course)

Yes, it would be one possibility and can be used in the real application. On the other hand we can loose possibility to simulate some nodes in the process as real nodes (e.g. we can simulate load on mail server, or service calls).

I have the similar issue as swiderski.maciej in
http://forums.activiti.org/content/simulation-process-definition
http://sourceforge.net/p/bpm-accelerator/wiki/

practical application is missing.

In my opinion simulation can dramatically affect BPM.

You already helped me with the way how to show benefits of simulation.
Could you imagine way how to present contribution of simulation to the BPM solutions development?

Re: activiti-crystalball getting started

jbarrez — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:40:20 GMT

I think the general way simulation is 'sold' is through cost analysis.

Meaning: you have process X and process Y. Both of them do the same thing, but they're modeled differently.
Simulation is then the tool you'd use to 'prove' that X is more efficient than Y.

That is why it is important to have charts, to see in a 1-1 fight which process is 'the best' 🙂

Re: activiti-crystalball getting started

gromar — Wed, 29 May 2013 07:55:18 GMT

It makes sense.
I will try to prepare cost analysis example.

Re: activiti-crystalball getting started

gromar — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 16:02:53 GMT

I prepared costs analysis example (visit https://github.com/gro-mar/activiti-crystalball/wiki/Getting-started#costs-analysis). Report is not so nice as the previous one, but can be processed further.

I hope that somebody will find it useful.

Re: activiti-crystalball getting started

trademak — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:18:02 GMT

Thanks, that's looking already really useful. Looking forward to do some testing with it.

Best regards,

Re: activiti-crystalball getting started

jbarrez — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 15:15:45 GMT

Do you have plans to setup some easy to use demo app? I think that will be crucial to get more people to try it out.

Re: activiti-crystalball getting started

gromar — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 08:32:53 GMT

demo app

You are right jUnit tests are not sufficient. I will try to prepare demo app.

Re: activiti-crystalball getting started

jbarrez — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 07:20:15 GMT

Great! Especially with simulation people just want to see it. looking forward to it. Keep us posted!

Re: activiti-crystalball getting started

gromar — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 13:56:59 GMT

I was thinking about demo app (1 month - mean time I have copied support for variables from process engine to simulation engine 🙂 ).

I started already with demo app.
Please visit:
Getting started
there are several examples (and use cases):
The first simulation run
Use simulation for monitoring.
Costs analysis.

I would appreciate any comment.
Is getting started understandable?

Re: activiti-crystalball getting started

jbarrez — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 07:52:23 GMT

Yes, in my opinion it's getting really understandable and usable!

As I said,if you combine what you have now with a visual demo (with a nice UI, people like nice UI's) it would be cool.
But this is certainly going nice!

Re: activiti-crystalball getting started

b_schnarr — Wed, 23 Apr 2014 12:27:41 GMT

Hi,

this project sounds very cool and more than useful. Is there any progress on a visual demo app?

Best regards
Ben

Re: activiti-crystalball getting started

martin_grofcik — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 06:13:35 GMT

Hi Ben,

There are some news. If you are interested you can propose demo which you would like to see. 🙂

Regards
Martin

Re: activiti-crystalball getting started

bellal — Thu, 30 Mar 2017 15:40:49 GMT

Hi,

I need to integrate crystalball to my own activiti application.

but when i download Crystalball and runing "mvn clean install", this command generate errors.

I have attached the screenshot of errors.

can someone help me to run crystalball?