The Operational Agility Software Company
Monitoring Blue Prism
This data sheet outlines the methods and techniques that can be used to monitor a Blue Prism
implementation. It covers both alerting and reporting of process exceptions as well as the monitoring of
the components of the Blue Prism infrastructure such as Interactive Clients, Application Server(s),
Runtime Resources and SQL Databases.
Monitoring the Blue Prism Infrastructure
A Blue Prism infrastructure will comprise a number of different components each of which can be
monitored and polled to verify that it is available and responsive. When monitoring the Blue Prism
components, standard third party tools and techniques can be used to evaluate the following:
Health of allocated hardware (e.g. disk space, CPU utilisation, network connectivity).
Availability of specific windows services (e.g. service started, responding on the appropriate port).
Windows Event Viewer entries.
SQL Server
SQL Server is of paramount importance in the Blue Prism architecture and any performance or
availability issues with this component are likely to be the source of a number of other issues that may be
experienced across the other Blue Prism components.
As well as the health of the allocated hardware, it is recommended that the SQL Server Instance(s) that
host Blue Prism databases should be monitored for functionality and responsiveness.
Hardware health Standard health-checks (e.g. available disk space, CPU utilisation,
network connectivity).
SQL specific health-checks (e.g. that applied SQL limits are not being
reached (database size, log file size)). This should be applied to all Blue
Prism databases as well as the default databases for the instance(s) such
as tempdb.
Availability of specific There are a number of standard SQL services that should be verified as
being started including those responsible for providing backup and
windows services maintenance functionality.
Windows Event Viewer The event viewer of the SQL Server should be reviewed for any errors or
warnings which may affect the availability or performance of the SQL
Server.
Applicable Blue Prism Editions: Enterprise, NHS
info@blueprism.com • +44 (0)870 879 3000 • Centrix House, Crow Lane East, Newton-le-Willows, WA12 9UY
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The Operational Agility Software Company
Blue Prism Application Server
Where a Blue Prism Application Server is implemented, the health of the allocated hardware should be
monitored as should the Blue Prism specific windows services.
Hardware health Standard health-checks (e.g. disk space, CPU utilisation, network
connectivity)
Availability of specific Verify that that Blue Prism Server windows service is started.
windows services A worthwhile test is to ensure that the Application Server is able to listen
for TCP traffic on the configured port (by default the port is 8199).
Windows Event Viewer Events are written to a custom windows event log called Blue Prism.
The event source can be compared to the name that the Blue Prism
Server service is given when it is installed (by default it is “Server Service
– Default”). Typically any event item that is of type Error is worth further
investigation.
Applicable Blue Prism Editions: Enterprise
Blue Prism Runtime Resources
The runtime resources are responsible for executing the Blue Prism processes and therefore both the
health of the allocated hardware as well as their ability to receive and return communications should be
monitored.
Hardware health Standard health-checks (e.g. disk space, CPU utilisation, network
connectivity)
Availability of specific There are no Blue Prism specific services to monitor in relation to this
component, however a worthwhile test is to ensure that the Runtime
windows services Resource is able to listen for TCP traffic on the configured port (by default
the port is 8181).
Windows Event Viewer For Blue Prism versions v4.1 and later, events are written to a custom
windows event log called Blue Prism.
Typically any event item that is of type Error is worth further investigation.
Applicable Blue Prism Editions: Enterprise, NHS
info@blueprism.com • +44 (0)870 879 3000 • Centrix House, Crow Lane East, Newton-le-Willows, WA12 9UY
Commercial In Confidence, © Blue Prism
The Operational Agility Software Company
Process Alerts and Monitoring
In addition to the functionality provided within Control Room for controlling and monitoring the runtime
resources, additional notifications about Processes and Schedules can be provided through use of
Alerts.
Process Alerts
Process alerts can be used to notify specified users when certain actions occur for selected processes
within the Blue Prism environment and are configured on a per user
basis.
This can help to provide process-level monitoring which may be useful
for identifying wider problems which affects the smooth running of Blue
Prism.
Users can select which processes they would like to monitor, what
actions they are interested in being told about, and also the method by
which they would like to be notified.
Additionally, if there is a desire to monitor additional actions, manual
alert notifications can be designed into any Blue Prism process.
Schedule Alerts
As with Process Alerts, Schedule Alerts are used to notify specified
users when certain actions occur for selected schedules within the Blue
Prism environment, and are configured on a per user basis.
Users can select which schedules they would like to monitor and they
can select the method by which they would like to be notified.
Additionally they can choose whether notifications are required at the
schedule, or more detailed schedule-task, level.
Custom Alerts
Where additional or specific alerts are required, it is possible to design custom alert notifications into any
process. Such custom alert notifications can be very sophisticated (e.g. waiting for the same error to
occur a number of times) and can take a wide number of actions (e.g. sending an email, raising an
SNMP trap). These custom alerts can provide a great
deal of flexibility and elegance to process level
monitoring.
Applicable Blue Prism Editions: Enterprise
info@blueprism.com • +44 (0)870 879 3000 • Centrix House, Crow Lane East, Newton-le-Willows, WA12 9UY
Commercial In Confidence, © Blue Prism
