Bot Critical Memory Threshold

New Technique for monitoring bot memory

A new concept has been introduced in v2.21 in order to monitor the “critical memory threshold” of the bot. When this critical memory threshold is reached, the bot will automatically attempt to close all “non-essential” SAP GUI windows. If the memory is still above this threshold, then the queue will be automatically paused.

New bot memory general parameter

There is now a new bot “general parameter” that specifies this critical memory threshold. The parameter name is “BOT_MEM_THRESHOLD” and the default value for this is 900 (Mb).

What happens if this critical threshold is reached?

As mentioned previously, if this threshold is reached and remains after the attempt to close down windows, the execution queue will automatically pause. This presents the opportunity for the operator to add in more bots to the queue if required. Adding in new bots to the playback “on the fly” is also new functionality available in Testimony v2.21. You simply start up another bot machine connected to the central system. You will then see it appear in the “Active Bots” of the playback monitoring. You can then “connect” the bot using the normal button to do this. After that the queue can be resumed.

*When a bot reaches the critical memory threshold, the queue is automatically paused. However, you can still continue the playback once you have observed that everything with the bot is ok (e.g. the number of windows is minimal). The bot that reached its critical threshold is marked with a flag to indicate that it has already reached its threshold. That bot will thus be ignored going forward in the assessment of whether to pause the queue even though it may be above the memory threshold.

If you would like the queue paused again if that particuar bot (or others) have their threshold reached again, then you need to remove this “ignore flag” from “Active Bots” grid in the playback monitoring. This is shown in the screen-shot below. The field is a hot-spot which must be clicked for the required bot and the flag will then be removed.

Memory Threshold Ignore Flag

Additional notes

Since playbacks of certain transactions take up more memory than others, we have ensured that the bots will navigate back to the start transaction at the end of each script. Effectively, the bot performs a “/N” transaction once the script is completed, thus freeing up any additional memory that may be in use by the current transaction.