Deck 5: Designing a Blue Prism (Version 6.0) Environment

Question 1

Which of the following statements is true, when considering the specifications of the Virtualized devices for the Blue Prism environment? (Select 2)

A) Only the minimum specifications for the Blue Prism components are required
B) The Virtual CPU to Physical core ratio on the Virtual host may have an impact on performance
C) The resource requirements of the automated applications should also be considered
D) All runtime resources should have identical resource profiles
E) Virtual devices will perform exactly the same as physical devices with similar specifications
F) A type 2 hypervisor should be used for production grade environments

Answer 1

B,F

Question 2

Which of the following statements is true, when considering Virtualizing the Blue Prism Database Server? (Select 1)

A) Virtualization of the database server should only be considered after fully reviewing the specific vendor recommendations for the Hypervisor and SQL server version
B) The Database server should never be virtualized
C) Virtualization is only supported on Vmware Hypervisor technology
D) Virtualization should be considered only in very small environments

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Which of the following statements are true, when considering a remote access technology and strategy for monitoring and operation of the Blue Prism environment? (Select 3)

A) RDP is recommended as the default tool for remoting, as it is built into all Windows Operating systems
B) RDP is not suitable for remoting of production runtime resources, as it is an intrusive technology and may interfere with "in flight" process execution
C) Consideration should be given to the security of the remoting tool and whether it can be integrated with SSO
D) Remote Access to runtime resources should be limited to restrict access and visibility to data that may be used within a process

Answer 3

A,B,C

Question 4

Which of the following is TRUE, when referring to establishing a connection between a V6 Application Server and Client? (Select 2)

A) One of the WCF connection modes should be used. .NET remoting is provided for legacy support purposes only.
B) Either WCF or .NET remoting may be selected. It does not matter which is used.
C) It is important to ensure that all Blue Prism clients are configured to use the same connection mode as the Blue Prism Server that they are expected to connect to
D) It is important to configure the Blue Prism certificate server prior to establishing a connection from a client

Question 5

Which of the following statements is true, when considering the security of OPERATING connections between Blue Prism components, when using one of the recommended connection modes? (Select 1)

A) The encryption of the remoting connection always uses AES256.
B) The security of the connection is handled by WCF.
C) Any of the WCF modes will provide full encryption of the connection.
D) The security of the connection is handled by .NET remoting and the windows SSPI layer.

Question 6

Where can the key used by the Credential Manager be stored? (Select 1)

A) The key is always stored in the database
B) The key is always stored within the config file on the Application Server
C) The key can either be stored in the database, in the config file on the Application Server, or in a separate securable file on the Application Server
D) The key is hard-coded and stored securely within the Application. It is subjected to obfuscation to ensure it's protection
E) The key can only be stored in the database or in the config file on the Application Server

Question 7

Which of the following are common reasons to deploy multiple Application Servers for a single environment? (Select 2)

A) Redundancy - e.g. to provide a level of continuity if one Application Server fails
B) To increase the overall security of the environment
C) The number of connected clients and runtime resources
D) The Application Server doubles up as a Web Server for a separate application

Question 8

What should be considered when designing the Network design and placement of Blue Prism components (and the proximity to target applications)? (Select 4)

A) If runtime resources will be deployed centrally, the outbound network connectivity and latency to the instrumented applications must be considered.
B) If the runtime resource and application server will be deployed outside of a common Active Directory network infrastructure, Transport Encryption connection mode must be used to secure the operating communications
C) A runtime resource can be deployed remotely, and connections secured, even if the runtime is not within the same Active Directory Network Infrastructure
D) The communication between components requires the ability to resolve the IP address of the target machine by name
E) If the runtime resource will be deployed remotely to the application server, certificate-based encryption may need to be considered, as instructional communications are not encrypted by default.

Question 9

What are the main factors that should be considered when virtualizing Runtime Resources? (Select 1)

A) An underlying disk subsystem which hosts many virtual devices can be a performance bottleneck.
B) Often shared hardware is over-allocated resulting in less than expected available capacity (e.g. 2 vCPUs may equate to 0.1 physical cores)
C) It is important to validate the actual performance of the Runtime Resources when operating on shared hardware
D) The performance of the Runtime Resource can impact processing throughput
E) All of the above

Question 10

When process automations are designed appropriately, which connections between Blue Prism devices can support high-latency? (Select 1)

A) Interactive Clients to Runtime Resources
B) Application Server to Runtime Resources
C) Application Server to Database Server
D) Application Server to Interactive Client
E) No components can be supported over a high-latency connection

Question 11

Which of the following should be taken into account, when designing the security model for a Blue Prism environment? (Select 5)

A) Integration with Active Directory
B) The location of the credential store keys
C) Integration with an external LDAP service
D) The encryption method for the credential store
E) The encryption method for the operational communications between database server and runtimes
F) The separation of duties between roles and environments
G) Remote access to the Blue Prism components

Question 12

Which of the following should be taken into account, when considering Automating applications that are delivered via Application Virtualization or layering Software (such as VMWare Horizon App Volumes, or Citrix XenDisk)? (Select 3)

A) There may be additional implications to the overall complexity of the architecture, due to the additional components involved in the virtualization technology
B) It will only ever be possible to use Surface Automation to Automate these applications
C) The Login Agent application must be available prior to User Login
D) The mapping between virtualized applications and users is often 1:1. This needs to be considered when designing the credential management approach for the Runtime Resources
E) Customizations to the application may be lost after the user is logged out or the system is rebooted, unless additional mechanisms are used to preserve them
F) Surface Automation will always need to be used in these scenarios

Question 13

By default what port does a Runtime Resource listen on? (Select 1)

A) 8181 - but it is configurable
B) 8199 - this is fixed and cannot be changed
C) 443
D) There is no default

Question 14

What should be considered when configuring high availability and disaster recovery scenarios for the Blue Prism Application Servers? (Select 2)

A) Blue Prism application natively provides fail over between multiple application servers for a Runtime Resource.
B) Consider deploying multiple Application Servers for each environment.
C) Consider the impact of maintenance schedules on the availability of the environment.
D) Deploy multiple instances of an application server service on a single VM.

Question 15

What is a common way of supporting geographically disparate users of a Blue Prism environment? (Controllers / Developers)? (Select 1)

A) Provide a high performance MPLS connection between sites
B) Provide virtualized Interactive Clients within the same network as the Blue Prism environment
C) Provide fully replicated Blue Prism environments in each geographic region where users are based
D) Nominate a user in the central location who will receive releases from each remote user and apply them to the system

Question 16

What factors should be considered, when designing the virtualization strategy for a Blue Prism environment? (Select 1)

A) Existing Data Center and Virtualization strategies
B) Support of the components
C) Desktop and Application Virtualization Strategies
D) Availability
E) All of the above

Question 17

Why is it important to control remote console access to the Runtime Resources? (Select 1)

A) Because runtime resources are used to control the scheduling of processes
B) Because runtime Resources will always have administrative level access to the Blue Prism database
C) Because Runtime Resources will always have administrative level access to the Blue Prism control room
D) Because Runtime Resources will be executing automations, where data may be visible or a transaction could be manually interfered with

Question 18

Within a PRODUCTION environment, which of the following tasks would an Interactive Client be used for? (Select 4)

A) Developing automated processes
B) Configuring Application models
C) Creating packages using Release Manager
D) Importing packages using Release Manager
E) Assigning Processes to Runtime Resources
F) Managing Active Queues
G) Managing Schedules

Question 19

How should Runtime Resources be sized? (Select 1)

A) Use Blue Prism's recommendation of 1 CPU, 2 GB RAM, 10 GB Hard Drive
B) Use Blue Prism's recommendation of 2 CPU. 4 GB RAM, 20 GB Hard Drive
C) Size based on the latest documented Blue Prism minimum recommended specifications, plus the hardware and software requirements to be able to use all of the applications that will be used by the automations
D) Runtime Resources should only be sized after 3 months of continued operation

Question 20

Which of the following statements is true, when considering designing the monitoring for a Blue Prism environment? (Select 3)

A) The Blue Prism interactive client can be used on its own to monitor the environment in its entirety
B) Monitoring of Blue Prism is not necessary
C) External Monitoring tools should be used to monitor system performance
D) Event logs should be monitored for application errors
E) Process execution related errors may need to be dealt with by a business operations team
F) Process related errors are automatically sent to the event log

Question 21

What devices may a Runtime Resource receive INSTRUCTIONAL communications from? (Select 4)

A) Active Directory Domain Controllers
B) Blue Prism Interactive Clients
C) Blue Prism Application Server(s)
D) Other Blue Prism Runtime Resources
E) Third party systems accessing Blue Prism web services
F) Blue Prism Credential Manager

Question 22

What dictates whether it is appropriate to host Application Server services for different environments on a single device? (Select 2)

A) Whether the different environments will be accessing the same processes
B) Whether there are any security related reasons to segregate services on to separate devices
C) Whether it is acceptable for product updates to be applied to all environments simultaneously
D) It is not possible to host multiple Application Server services on a single device

Question 23

What are appropriate methods for designing high availability and disaster recovery scenarios for the Blue Prism Database? (Select 3)

A) SQL Always on Availability Groups
B) Windows Clustering
C) Replication
D) Blue Prism Active Sync
E) Connect an application server to 2 Database Instances in parallel

Question 24

Which of the following should be taken into account, when considering using a Virtual desktop for the Runtime Resource using Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) or Hosted Virtual Desktop (HVD) Software (such as Citrix XenDesktop or Vmware Horizon View)? (Select 2)

A) When using a non-persistent Virtual Desktop, the image may be refreshed and this could be problematic if not carefully managed.
B) It may be necessary to use the Blue Prism login agent or another automatic login method, to instantiate the Virtual Desktop session.
C) The Runtime Resources should not be deployed on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.
D) It is always appropriate to use the same technology and strategy as is used for the human operators in the client environment.

Question 25

Which of the following statements are true, when considering the security of INSTRUCTIONAL communications to runtime resources? (Select 3)

A) By default the connection is native TCP and not encrypted
B) The runtime resource can be configured to use certificate-based encryption for all inbound communication
C) The login agent will automatically use a certificate if the runtime resource is configured to use one
D) The connection will be established via .NET remoting and will be encrypted as long as the "Use Secure Connections" flag is set
E) A central setting within Blue Prism can be used to prevent all associated Runtime Resources from accepting any instructional communications which are not encrypted.

Question 26

What are the benefits of enabling direct network access from a Runtime to an end user application, as opposed to connecting via a component such as Citrix or RDSH? (Select 2)

A) Network latency is circumvented
B) There are more options for interacting directly with the applications which accelerates time required to build automations
C) Automations built using direct object level instrumentation are likely to be more robust
D) It is then possible to record an automation directly using the spying tools
E) This enables the use of Surface Automation, which is faster to develop

Question 27

Which of the following is most likely to have the BIGGEST impact on database growth? (Select 2)

A) The level of session logging that is configured for each stage of each Business Object and Process
B) Session logging archiving policy
C) The number of Blue Prism users
D) The number of Runtime Resources that are registered
E) Whether Active Queues are used