ProM as a Web (Intranet) Service — is it possible?

dkapinos

Good localtime to all,

I'm going to introduce students to ProM (and Process Mining).

But I want to avoid 2 obstacles:

1) an installation of ProM on every student's machine by each student (their's major is not IT);

2) an interaction with our IT support that for some reasons is not very supportive.

I wonder: is it somehow possible to install ProM on dedicated (virtual) server or cloud in the Internet with access through web browser? Or may be thin client?

What do you suggest?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Best regards,

Dmitry

hverbeek

Dear Dmitry,

If the student's machines are comparable to your own machine (say, a 64-bits Windows machine), then you could install it on your one machine and offer a bundle containing a copy of the installation to the students (say, on a USB drive). However, some care needs to be taken, as the bundle should not be distributed freely. The (incompatible) licenses of some (necessary) ProM packages simply do not allow you (and us) to be distribute ProM as a single bundle.

I guess you could also install it on a VM, but then all students would have to use ProM on that VM, which may result in problems as some ProM plug-ins tend to use quite some resources.

Kind regards,

Eric.

dkapinos

Hi, Eric.

Thank you for the answer!

I'll probably try the bundle approach, If I find no better solution. I think it will be possible to organize computer classroom with workstations. So I guess the installation on the machines by copying shouldn't be so demanding operation. Thanks for the hint!

The ideal situation in the perfect world would be though, if there was no need to do any installation on the client side at all. People come, get access to server (real or virtual), play with tools, save results, write reports, and it's done.

By the way, recently many applications are going in the direction (SaaS). Even MS office applications are moving to cloud. Along with ProM I'm going to introduce also a BPM system (jBPM or Camunda) and R. I've already found how to manage them in the mode (more or less). May be the support of the SaaS mode is one more opportunity for further ProM development, what do you think?

Still I have the feeling that I might miss some simple and elegant way to provide multiaccess to any application whether it was designed for that or not. I'm not very skilled at network/servers administration.

I thought about VM too. My idea was to install Linux in VM, and then ProM (and R, and BPMS) on the Linux. To create Linux accounts for all the students. VM could be started on server or cloud, and students could access it from workstations through some Remote Desktop app (do not know what it could be yet). Still installations of some RD clients on client machines are needed. But it is a bit easier than multiple installations of main applications (and what if I'll need to do some settings changes on the fly after that).

What do you think? What kind of problems might happen with ProM on the VM? RAM shortage, I guess?

Thanks for help again.

Best regards,

Dmitry

hverbeek

Hi Dmitry,

Some of the plug-ins in ProM require several GBs of RAM. For example, the replayer will typically run out of memory if the Java VM has only 1 GB assigned to it.

For this reason, I would not opt for a solution where many students are using ProM on the same server, unless they all can use at least 4 GB of RAM (or something like that).

Kind regards,

Eric.

dkapinos

OK, thanks!

I think that I should play with some real installation, different plugins, datasets, and see what's going on (and should keep away from hardcore cases).

I have few more questions, while we are at it:

1. What version of ProM to prefer for demonstration? There are 6.9, 5.2, Light 1.2. Is there a real difference between them in performance, functionality or user interface?

2. What about RapidProM? Is it still in use? Forum branch here is empty. User guide was updated in 2015 and mentions RapidMiner 5 Suite. Since then there were changes in RapidMiner distribution policies (it is not exactly free now, if I understand it right), and there are different versions/product names on RapidMiner site (Studio, Server, etc.).

By the way, there is a Cloud version of RapidMiner Server. Does it means that it is possible to run ProM remotely through RapidMiner?

What the difference between RapidProM and standalone ProM?

Eric, excuse me for the barrage of questions. I have no other place to ask.

And thank you for your help!

Best regards,

Dmitry

hverbeek

Hi Dmitry,

1. I would use ProM Lite 1.2. ProM 5.2 is now 10 years old. Although some of the functionality it offers is not there in ProM 6.X (or ProM Lite 1.X), it is not really current anymore. With the ProM 6.X series, we target researchers, with the ProM Lite 1.X series we target students. The ProM Lite 1.X series offers the most common functionality of the ProM 6.X series, with updates if needed. A ProM 6.X has no updates, as the results obtained by it should be reproducible.
2. I think it is fair to say that the active support of RapidProM has ceased to exist here at TU/e. The people involved in RapidProM have all left the TU/e. Some of them have moved now to RWTH Aachen, but I'm note sure whether they still actively support it.

I have not much knowledge on the RapidProM. It is probable that you need a specific version of RapidMiner to install RapidProM successfully. I honestly do not know whether RapidProM will work on this RapidMiner Server.

RapidProM is a ProM add-on for RapidMiner. Using RapidProM, you can easily create workflows in RapidMiner for ProM plug-ins. ProM lacks this functionality, either you need to create a 'meta'-plug-in for this (which calls the other plug-ins in the correct order), or you have to do this by hand.

No need to apologize. I tis good that you're using the forum for your questions.This way, the answers are there to help others as well.

Kind regards,

Eric.

mosi_dab

Hi Eric,
Following part of your answer is relevant to my question at Chain of Plugins question and interested me.

RapidProM is a ProM add-on for RapidMiner. Using RapidProM, you can easily create workflows in RapidMiner for ProM plug-ins. ProM lacks this functionality, either you need to create a 'meta'-plug-in for this (which calls the other plug-ins in the correct order), or you have to do this by hand.

Could you please explain about meta-plug-in?
I need to implement such workflow to do a serial of log analysis.

dkapinos

OK, thanks! I've got it. I will ponder over it.

Rem: If RapidProM uses some API to call ProM's functionality, that's mean that ProM should be pretty close to SaaS version. Web face (or kind of) is needed. Do not know how the ProM internally organized though.

Best regards,

Dmitry

P.S. I'll be back. )

hverbeek

Which a 'meta'-plugin I mean a plugin that just calls a series of other plugins in succession. This can be done by calling the context's tryToFindOrConstructFirstNamedObject() method for every plugin that you need to call. This method has a variable number of parameters:

1. The class you need the method to return. The plugin you call should be able to create an object of this class.
   
2. The name of the plugin.
3. The class of the connection. May be null.
4. The role for this connection. may also be null.
5. A series of input objects from which the returned object can be created by the plugin.
   

Kind regards,

Eric.

mosi_dab

Hi Eric,
I have one more question about RapidProM, It would be the best if you answer this one as always.
About this sentence of your answer:

RapidProM is a ProM add-on for RapidMiner. Using RapidProM, you can easily create workflows in RapidMiner for ProM plug-ins.

Is there a way to use a user written plugin (which originally its target is to be used by ProM) inside RapidProM?

Thanks,
Mustafa

hverbeek

HI Mustafa,

As far as I know, some work is involved in making some ProM plugin available in RapidProM. That is, if you create a new ProM plugin, some work additional work is needed to make it available in RapidProM. But I do not know the details.

Kind regards,

Eric.

sjjleemans

A bit of shameless advertisement: the ProM QuickVisualiser contains a couple selected up-to-date plug-ins of ProM and does not require installation. Just unzip and run. It can be downloaded from (and more info at) http://leemans.ch/quickvisualiser/

dkapinos

Hi, Sander!

Thanks for the advertisement! ) Looks interesting.

It seems close to the «bundle installation» that Eric has suggested above.

What ProM plugins it supports?

Can it be run on Linux or Mac?

Best regards,

Dmitry

sjjleemans

Hi Dmitry,

It supports only a limited subset of ProM plug-ins:

• Accepting Petri nets (.apnml)
• BPMN models (.bpmn)
  Visualise & convert to accepting Petri net.
• Directly follows graphs (.dfg)
  Visualise & edit.
• Dot files (.dot)
  Visualise & edit.
• Event logs (.xes, .xes.gz)
  Show log summary, show log as wedges, create directly follows graph from log, & run Inductive visual Miner on log.
• Petri nets with data (.pnml)
  Visualise & edit.
• Process tree (.ptml, .tree)
  Visualise, edit & generate event log from process tree.

There is currently no Linux or Mac version, but if you'd like to help building these, then I'd be happy to hear

Sander

dkapinos

OK, Sander, thanks for the info!

It is sad that there are no versions for Linux and Mac yet. Provided that the app is written on java and should be portable (theoretically).

I'd like to help with development of course, if I knew how all the scarry thing works. ) Is there some manuals for ProM developers, by the way?

Best regards,

Dmitry

mosi_dab

Hi sjjleemans
I'd love to help by developing your QuickVisualiser to gain more ProM packages, also for mac and linux!