What Causes Frontend Instance Hours on Google App Engine?

I have a simple question about ODK Aggregate:

What causes frontend instance hours on Google App Engine?

"Frontend instance hours" tracks the amount of time the ODK Aggregate
server is running either for displaying webpages or for processing
submissions from, e.g., ODK Collect. Whenever you access a web page or
submit a filled-in form, Google will either send that request to an
existing running ODK Aggregate instance of yours, that is already billing
frontend instance hours, or, it will decide to start a new instance to
handle that request. When paging through the submissions on the website, it
is not uncommon for Google to start 2 or 3 copies of the server to handle
all of the requests (each image thumbnail is a separate request, typically
causing over 100 requests to be issued for each refresh of the submissions
page).

Handling just the filled-in form submissions incurs the least number of
frontend instance hours. Often well below the free threshold. The more
people viewing the website or displaying content on the submissions page,
the faster you will consume the free quota of frontend instance hours and
incur charges. Setting up a publisher to publish the data into a CSV or
Fusion Table, which can be viewed without charge, is a simple way to avoid
granting widespread access to the ODK Aggregate website and thereby
minimizing usage charges.

For other usage info, see

··· On Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 10:25 AM, Jefferson Francisco < jeffersont.francisco@gmail.com> wrote:

I have a simple question about ODK Aggregate:

What causes frontend instance hours on Google App Engine?

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Mitch Sundt
Software Engineer
University of Washington
mitchellsundt@gmail.com

And to complete the explanation, after about 10 minutes of inactivity,
Google will shut down your ODK Aggregate instance. For 9-to-5-workday
workplaces, this means that you effectively have the entire free quota for
this resource to use during your 9-to-5 workday.

··· On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 10:04 AM, Mitch Sundt wrote:

"Frontend instance hours" tracks the amount of time the ODK Aggregate
server is running either for displaying webpages or for processing
submissions from, e.g., ODK Collect. Whenever you access a web page or
submit a filled-in form, Google will either send that request to an
existing running ODK Aggregate instance of yours, that is already billing
frontend instance hours, or, it will decide to start a new instance to
handle that request. When paging through the submissions on the website, it
is not uncommon for Google to start 2 or 3 copies of the server to handle
all of the requests (each image thumbnail is a separate request, typically
causing over 100 requests to be issued for each refresh of the submissions
page).

Handling just the filled-in form submissions incurs the least number of
frontend instance hours. Often well below the free threshold. The more
people viewing the website or displaying content on the submissions page,
the faster you will consume the free quota of frontend instance hours and
incur charges. Setting up a publisher to publish the data into a CSV or
Fusion Table, which can be viewed without charge, is a simple way to avoid
granting widespread access to the ODK Aggregate website and thereby
minimizing usage charges.

For other usage info, see https://opendatakit.org/
use/aggregate/deployment-planning/#App_Engine_Usage_Fees

On Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 10:25 AM, Jefferson Francisco < jeffersont.francisco@gmail.com> wrote:

I have a simple question about ODK Aggregate:

What causes frontend instance hours on Google App Engine?

--

Post: opendatakit@googlegroups.com
Unsubscribe: opendatakit+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
Options: http://groups.google.com/group/opendatakit?hl=en


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--
Mitch Sundt
Software Engineer
University of Washington
mitchellsundt@gmail.com

--
Mitch Sundt
Software Engineer
University of Washington
mitchellsundt@gmail.com