Re: Job scheduler question

I think given the use case you are making the suggestion Larry made is the
correct one. You can do all of that in CL, and if it's a pre-processing
situation, the CL can be made smart enough to recognise various conditions.
A good example is dealing with iASP. Both Larry and I have written several
CLs that manage the system state for backups, start up, shutdown, and
planned/unplanned switches. It's not rocket science if you take the time
to break down the steps into specific actions to take. (The addition of
subroutines in CL made this much easier)

Asking the scheduler to be that smart is basically asking for control logic
to be put into the command structure, something I would be
naturally opposed to, since it would make the product significantly more
expensive (cost to build/maintain) and way more difficult to administer.



--
Jim Oberholtzer
Chief Technical Architect
Agile Technology Architects


On Thu, May 12, 2022 at 2:02 PM Marc Rauzier <marc.rauzier@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Le 12/05/2022 à 18:01, Jim Oberholtzer a écrit :

You can add a command list to a job. When adding the job use F7. You

can

even manipulate the parameters. Maybe you just want the SBMJOBJS to do

the

same thing as a scheduled job? Set up the job then submit it. I'm not
sure what the objection is here.

My point is not about the command list of a scheduled job. I do like
this feature. I would just appreciate if we could set message monitoring
up with the 5250 interface as it is only available through web interface
(mmhh, though not sure if it is available with the new Navigtor).

My point is about the capability to replace this command list in a
scheduled job with an procedure which could be managed outside of the
scheduled job. Actually, just like a program. But, and this is my 2
cents, I do prefer using a command list in a scheduler procedure rather
than a program. This is quite easier to immediately check the content of
the procedure, which is a command list, and understand what it does,
rather than look at the source of a program which needs to be looked at
somewhere on the system, or even on another system. When you have to
manage several tens of systems, with various rules for sources location,
this is easier to immediately find what you are looking for. Of course,
it applies to non-complex procedures. For complex ones, a program will
always be a better way to proceed.

Let me try to explain better through an example.

Let's talk about the need to end applications at distinct occurrences
during the time, so that backups can run without locks, or before a
power down sequence, for instance. Ending applications require the
following steps:

* ending QINTER subsystem
* ending an application web server
* ending some tcp/ip services
* ending host servers

So, the command list would be something like this (with appropriate
message monitoring):

* ENDSBS SBS(QINTER)
* ENDTCPSVR SERVER(*HTTP) HTTPSVR(myserver)
* ENDTCPSVR SERVER(*FTP *DDM *NETSVR)
* ENDHOSTSVR SERVER(*ALL)

Now, this command list must be used in all scheduled jobs running before
the backups and the power down. So, you have to create one job per
occurrence which address this command list. Let's say there are daily,
weekly and monthly backups. You will have to set this command list in
the three jobs, ENDAPPDAY, ENDAPPWEEK, ENDAPPMTH.

A few weeks later, you have an issue with a daily backup which partially
fails due to a lock by a batch job running in QBATCH subsystem. You
decide to include ending QBATCH subsystem in your ending applications job.

With AJS, if you do not use the SBMJOBJS technique to address the same
single scheduled job from the three ENDAPPxxx jobs, you will have to
update those three ones. Hopefully, you will not miss any other job
doing the same work (like a yearly backup for instance)...

With ROBOT SCHEDULE and with the feature I would like to have in AJS,
you just have to set the scheduled ENDAPPxxx jobs to use the same
procedure, and update this procedure only once, without bothering how
many jobs are using it.

But, again, this is my way to work, just my 2 cents.