🤔 Problem

When there are large classes that start at the same time session launch times can be really long because of the node autoscaling. We try to get information about events and classes and prepare/scale nodes ahead of time. But this process can take a lot of effort. We also have pitches that try to address this, see for example ‣.

However pre-emptive resource allocation scheduling is a more complicated pitch and the full benefits from it will likely take more than 1 build cycle to realize. In contrast this pitch is simpler and in one cycle it can provide some relief to the problem. Note that implementing this does not eliminate the need for ‣, we will most likely implement at some other sprint in the future.

The basic idea is that users can start a session before their class starts, pause it and then schedule for it to be resumed at a later date when the workshop or class starts. For example the scheduled start time can be 10 or 15 minutes before the start of a class. That way the session will be ready right at the beginning and the impact of the slow autoscaling is less obvious.

🍴 Appetite

6 weeks

🎯 Solution

Make it possible to schedule when a paused session will be resumed.

Components affected:

• amalthea: need to add a new field and way to auto-resume a session
• data service: allow a paused session to be patched with an auto resume time/date and also return information about a session auto-resume time/date
• ui: date/time picker and information about scheduled resume time, ability to cancel a scheduled resume time - this part can be a nice-to-have withe the option to polish/finish this during cooldown or in a future build

🚞 User stories / journeys

As a user, I want to be able to schedule when my paused session will resume automatically by itself. So that I can avoid waiting for the session to start when I really need it.

🐰 Rabbit Holes

• What happens when the time for when the auto-resume is scheduled is after the time limit for how long the session can be paused for?
• We have to make sure we handle time zones transparently and properly. Users should see their local time zone in the browser and select times in their local time for when they schedule a session to be resumed.
• What is the impact of the idle session culling? For example if someone schedules a session to be resumed 30 mins before a class but the session has an idle limit of 10 mins. Then when the class starts the session would have been paused again because of idleness most likely.