Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

How is Quantinuity different from other workflow automation solutions?

Computer-based process automation is increasingly popular in many fields and industries. Workflow automation solutions aim to streamline repetitive tasks on computers and reduce errors introduced by humans. Naturally, workflow automation solutions are targeted to certain use cases. For example, business process management (BPM) platforms streamline administrative, backoffice, data entry, and communication tasks such as sending emails, getting approvals, onboarding activities, or adding entries to spreadsheets. This is also the realm of no-code or low-code solutions that require only minimal technical knowledge from end users. On the other end of the spectrum, continuous integration (CI) servers automate software development processes by compiling, building, testing, packaging, and deploying software in controlled environments and according to specific rules and constraints. A carefully orchestrated process ensures the reliability of the end product. These solutions are typically built by software development experts.

Somewhere in the middle, other solutions have emerged. One example is data and event processing pipelines. With increasing amounts of data from physical sensors, user interactions on websites, or data feeds from various sources, companies can modify, manipulate, filter, and aggregate data in continuously streaming pipelines and make the results available for review and further analysis.

Quantinuity is neither a no-code or low-code development platform nor a software development tool. Instead, it aids in the organized execution of a related collection of computations that require sharing quantitative data. Generally, this allows the user to focus more on the results of a multi-stage analysis and less on the details of data transfer and orchestration.

What is a software container?

Software containerization is a form of virtualization. Whereas virtual machines are portable operating systems that can be discarded and recreated, software containers are virtual applications. A software container is a portable, standalone package of software that contains everything needed to run an application on any host machine. Containers are independent of host system hardware and are more lightweight than virtual machines. Containers start and stop quickly and scale well. Software containers were popularized by Docker™. Other implementations also exist and have become standard in container orchestration platforms.

How are cpu minutes measured?

Every task runs in its own software container. The duration of each computation, analysis, or simulation is saved and associated with a record of the container status. Container runtimes are aggregated across the subscription period. The number of minutes required for a particular computation depends on the application logic and potentially on the input parameter values. Ideally, parent tasks complete quickly after invoking their children. This reduces the usage of cpu minutes for an idle parent task waiting for its children. When the child tasks complete, the parent is invoked again and uses saved state values to determine whether to exit or invoke its children again. In this way, parent tasks may be invoked multiple times during a single job. Not all applications used for parent tasks support this mode of operations. If not, parent tasks may idly wait for child tasks to complete. Parent and child tasks may timeout if the runtime exceeds values configured in settings.

What happens if the cpu minutes quota is exceeded?

For subscription plans with an upper limit on cpu minutes, new jobs (including child jobs) will fail after the minutes quota has been exceeded.

Can I change my subscription plan?

Yes, you can change your subscription plan at any time. Plan upgrades become effective immediately. Plan downgrades become effective at the beginning of the next billing cycle (calendar month). Charges are determined based on the highest subscription plan that was active at any time during the subscription period.

Can I cancel a subscription?

You may cancel your subscription plan at any time by downgrading to the free tier. You will not be allowed to remove the payment card from the subscription until after the payment card is released. Payment cards are released from subscriptions after payment is made. When no payment card is associated with an active subscription or with a pending invoice payment, the subscription may be deleted. After deleting a subscription, workflow tasks cannot be executed. If you wish to deactivate your account entirely, you may do so on the account settings page. Minimal account information is retained for data integrity, billing, and legal purposes.