KB94274338: Imaging Engine - What are the consequences of installing Imaging Engine on a machine running other (Esko) software

Question

Can I install Imaging Engine on a machine running other (Esko) software and what are the consequences?

Answer

Yes you can install Imaging Engine next to other software but you have to take the following into account:

Imaging Engine is a multi-process, multi-threaded, 64 bit service. Meaning,

• Multi-process: Multiple EXE files will be running and executing tasks/jobs.
• Multi-threaded: Each single process is also multi-threaded and so a process can still be executed by multiple cores, as threads can be distributed.
• 64 bit: Imaging Engine runs ONLY on 64-bit platforms. It also has the advantage that the memory consumption is no longer limited to 4GB.
• Service: It's not an application. It runs as a service in the Automation Engine framework so there is no specific application called "Imaging Engine". You can only access Imaging Engine via the Automation Engine Pilot. This means that Imaging Engine can run on a machine which does not need to be available directly (a.k.a. it can run on a machine in a server room).

The number of workers will define how many processes will be running. The number of workers is limited by the number of cores of the machine and is limited by license.

Each worker can RIP a job (in parallel to other workers), or a multiple page job can be RIPped by multiple workers in parallel. A single page job (a.k.a. a one-up) cannot be ripped by multiple workers. Using multiple workers will not typically increase the RIPping time of a single job, but will give increased throughput of a set of jobs because they can be handled in parallel, and a slow job will not block other jobs.

Example: If you have four workers configured, you can rip four single page jobs in parallel.

Follow this guideline for the configuration of the workers (Automation Engine > Tools > Configure > Imaging Engines):

To guarantee minimal resources:

• Automation Engine (or Automation Engine assistant) requires at least 1 core

• Proof Server requires at least 2 cores

Hence

• In case IE runs on same machine as Automation Engine (or Automation Engine assistant) and Proof Server, # available cores to IE = # of available cores on the machine - 3
• In case IE runs on same machine as Automation Engine (or Automation Engine assistant) but no Proof Server, # available cores to IE = # of available cores on the machine - 1
• In case IE runs on same machine as Proof Server  but no Automation Engine (or Automation Engine assistant), # available cores to IE = # of available cores on the machine - 2

And the general guideline is:

#workers for IE are limited both by # worker licenses and # of available cores to IE.