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Submit a job requiring limits - Deadline Cloud
Automate limits with submission hooksEnd-to-end example: Enforce V-Ray license limits

Submit a job requiring limits

You apply a limit by specifying it as a host requirement for the job or job step. If you don't specify a limit in a step and that step uses an associated resource, the step's usage isn't counted against the limit when jobs are scheduled..

Some Deadline Cloud submitters enable you to set a host requirement. You can specify the limit's amount requirement name in the submitter to apply the limit.

If your submitter doesn't support adding host requirements, you can also apply a limit by editing the job template for the job.

To apply a limit to a job step in the job bundle

  1. Open the job template for the job using a text editor. The job template is located in the job bundle directory for the job. For more information, see Job bundles in the Deadline Cloud Developer Guide.

  2. Find the step definition for the step to apply the limit to.

  3. Add the following to the step definition. Replace amount.name with the amount requirement name of your limit. For typical use, you should set the min value to 1.

    YAML
      hostRequirements:
    amounts:
    - name: amount.name
      min: 1
    JSON
    "hostRequirements": {
    "amounts": [
        {
            "name": "amount.name",
            "min": "1"
        }
    }
}

    You can add multiple limits to a job step as follows. Replace amount.name_1 and amount.name_2 with the amount requirement names of your limits.

    YAML
      hostRequirements:
    amounts:
    - name: amount.name_1
      min: 1
    - name: amount.name_2
      min: 1
    JSON
    "hostRequirements": {
    "amounts": [
        {
            "name": "amount.name_1",
            "min": "1"
        },
        {
            "name": "amount.name_2",
            "min": "1"
        }
    }
}

  4. Save the changes to the job template.

Automate limits with submission hooks

If you want to enforce limits across all job submissions without requiring artists to manually edit job templates, you can use a pre-submission hook to automatically inject the host requirement into every job template at submission time.

A pre-submission hook is a script that runs before the job is submitted. The hook can modify the job bundle's template.yaml to add the hostRequirements amounts entry for your limit. This approach ensures that every job submitted through the Deadline Cloud CLI or DCC submitters declares its need for the limited resource.

For a complete working example, see the license limits submission hook sample in the Deadline Cloud samples repository.

End-to-end example: Enforce V-Ray license limits

This example shows how to set up a limit for 5 V-Ray floating licenses and verify that the scheduler enforces it.

To set up and test a V-Ray license limit

  1. Create the limit on your farm:

    aws deadline create-limit \
    --farm-id farm-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX \
    --display-name "VRay License" \
    --amount-requirement-name "amount.vray" \
    --max-count 5

  2. Associate the limit with your queue:

    aws deadline create-queue-limit-association \
    --farm-id farm-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX \
    --queue-id queue-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX \
    --limit-id limit-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

  3. Add the host requirement to your job template:

    specificationVersion: jobtemplate-2023-09
name: My VRay Render
steps:
  - name: Render
    hostRequirements:
      amounts:
        - name: amount.vray
          min: 1
    script:
      actions:
        onRun:
          command: vray
          args: ["-scene", "{{Param.SceneFile}}"]

  4. Submit the job. The scheduler allows at most 5 tasks with amount.vray to run concurrently across all jobs in the queue. Additional tasks remain in the READY state until a slot becomes available.

To verify the limit is working, temporarily set maxCount to 1 and submit two jobs. The first job runs while the second remains in the READY state until the first completes.