Load Balancer from a Hot Folder

This example demonstrates use of a hot folder to allocate jobs to a pool of printers, via the Simple Load Balancer script also found in this documentation.

The pool of printers can be large. A pool of 100 Wasatch SoftRIP's driving 400 printers should be no problem with this design.

Python 3 Source Code

# Customized hot folder feeding files to load balancer
#
#
import os
from os import listdir
from os.path import isfile, join
import urllib.request
import time

hotFolder = "/00temp/incoming/" # this is the hot folder
suspenseFolder = "/00temp/suspense/" # this folder holds files for printing

frequency = 10 # seconds - check hot folder every 'frequency' seconds

def checkHotFolder():
    for f in listdir(hotFolder):
        if isfile(join(hotFolder, f)):
            try:
                os.rename(join(hotFolder, f), join(suspenseFolder, f)) # move (don't copy) the file from hot to suspense folder
                os.system('filteredLoadBalancer.py' + ' ' + '\"' + join(suspenseFolder, f) + '\"') # run the load balancer script of your choice 
            except:
                print("Did not process " + join(hotFolder, f));

#
 # loop forever, checking for jobs every 'frequency' seconds
 #

while True:
    checkHotFolder()
    time.sleep(frequency)  # wait this many seconds before checking again