Scheduling jobs

Scheduling jobs allows you to create schedules to manipulate the operational states (start, stop, and pause) of connectors and collaborations. By manipulating component states, you can better manage how InterChange Server Express processes events. You can distribute the server's workload over scheduled time periods, thereby reducing traffic and allowing for more efficient resource management. This section covers the following topics:

"About scheduling jobs"

"Creating schedules"

"Modifying schedules"

"Deleting schedules"

"Displaying schedules"

"Enabling or disabling schedules"

About scheduling jobs

Scheduling jobs is done through the Schedule window (see Figure 14). From the Schedule window, you can create, modify, and delete scheduled items. You can see a list of all the schedules that are defined for components, or selectively view schedules based on your requirements. You can also enable or disable all schedules on the server.

Figure 14. Schedule window

When you create a schedule for a component, you supply information such as when and how often (recurrence) an action (state change) occurs. By default, no schedules are defined for a component. You can define as many schedules as you want for a component. Once a schedule is set, you can enable or disable its use.

The Schedule window allows you to determine the following items:

Status
Enable turns the schedule on and Disable turns the schedule off. The default status is enabled.
Effective Date
The date and time the schedule is enabled. The default is the current date and time.
Timezone
The time zone where the server is located. The default is Pacific Standard time.
Action
The action the schedule performs. Actions are Start, Pause, and Stop.
Next Occurrence
The next time the scheduled action occurs. If the schedule is non-recurring, the date is the same as the Effective Date. If the schedule is disabled, this field is blank.
Component
The name of the connector or collaboration being scheduled.
Comments
Text field that contains comments you enter about the schedule.

If you choose to make the schedule recurring, you can choose from several options including daily, weekly, or monthly.

Because each schedule consists of one action that occurs at a specified time, to create an interval when the server processes a component, you must define both a schedule to start and end processing. As an example, for a connector, you can create one schedule to start processing events at 1 A.M., and another schedule to pause processing at 3 A.M., daily. Only during that two-hour time period can the connector deliver events to InterChange Server Express for processing by collaborations that subscribe to that connector.

About scheduling connectors

When you schedule the connector operation, the state you select (start, pause, or stop) determines to what extent work is processed. For example, when you start a connector, it constantly polls an application for new events. When you pause a connector, it stops polling until started again, but is still able to handle service call requests from InterChange Server. A stopped connector is inactive.

By manipulating connector activity with collaboration activity, it is possible to schedule dedicated event processing for an application during a specified time window. To do this, both the collaboration and connector must be running during the same time interval. If the connector was paused, events that were queued can be processed when the connector resumes its activity.

About scheduling collaboration objects

As with connectors, when you schedule the collaboration Object's operation, the state you select (start, pause, or stop) determines to what extent work is processed. To review the collaboration states, see "Collaboration object states". For example, when you start a collaboration object, it processes the business objects that it receives from connectors. When you stop a collaboration object, all subsequent events are ignored. So unless you must stop the collaboration object, pause it instead.

Attention:
Stopping a collaboration object can cause the connector to delete events as unsubscribed. As a warning, the system produces a message if you select Stop.

When you pause a collaboration object, events remain in the collaboration queue until you restart the collaboration object.

Note:
If a scheduled collaboration object is part of a collaboration group, all collaboration objects in that group are scheduled with the same action.

By manipulating collaboration object activity with connector activity, it is possible to schedule dedicated event processing for an application during a specified time window. To do this, both the collaboration object and connector must be running during the same time interval. By assigning different processing windows to collaboration objects that are bound to the same connector, you can distribute the workload, and to some extent, control the amount of traffic a connector must handle. For example, in Figure 15, each collaboration object gets a dedicated time period when the connector is processing only that collaboration object's events.

Figure 15. Dedicated processing

Multiple collaboration objects can subscribe to the same business object. In that case, the object is sent to InterChange Server, where it remains until it is picked up by each collaboration object that subscribes to it, when the collaboration object is started after being paused.

Overriding schedules

Using System Monitor, you can override the state of a scheduled component (for example, start a collaboration object that the scheduler stopped a few minutes ago). Or you can set it to a state to one that the scheduler cannot change. For instance, if a collaboration object is scheduled to pause, you can stop it, not allowing the scheduler to pause it (a collaboration object cannot transition from stop to pause). In such a case, the scheduler does not override the manual change, but logs an error instead.

Creating schedules

To create a schedule for a collaboration or a connector:

  1. Open the Schedule window by right-clicking the Schedule folder in System Manager, then selecting "Edit components' schedule." The Schedule window appears, as shown in Figure 14.
  2. From System Manager, select the collaboration object or connector to be scheduled and drag it to the Schedule window.

    A new line entry with the name and type of the component is created in the Schedule window (for example, ClarifyConnector (Connector)).

  3. Enter information about the schedule by clicking the down arrow in each of the schedule cells:
    1. In the Status field, accept Enable to turn the scheduled item on or select Disable to turn it off.

      An enabled schedule is effective as soon as you click OK or Apply; a disabled schedule is immediately dormant until enabled. When a schedule is disabled, the Next Occurrence cell is blank to indicate there is no scheduled occurrence for this schedule item.

    2. In the Effective Date field, use the calendar to select the date and time when the scheduled item will occur.

      By default, the current date and time are set. Use the MM/DD/YYYY hh:mm:ss format. A 12 or 24 hour clock is used, based on the Time format configured in the Preferences window, which is available from the Edit menu.

    3. In the Timezone field, select the name of the time zone where the scheduled item is being created, if necessary. By default, the time zone for the scheduled item is set to Pacific Standard Time.

      For example, the schedule for a connector is created in New York (select Eastern Standard time) while InterChange Server Express is located in Japan. InterChange Server Express uses this information to determine the local time for the schedule so it can run the job at the appropriate time.

    4. In the Action field, select the action to be performed. Actions are Start, Pause, and Stop.
    5. Type in any comments you may have in the Comments text cell. A maximum of 255 characters is allowed.
  4. If you want this schedule to be ongoing, click the Recurrence check box and enter information about the next occurrence of the action. Click one of the radio buttons to determine a style for inputting the recurrence information and use the down arrow menus to select specific date information:

    If you do not enable the recurrence option, the Next Occurrence field is blank and the schedule expires after it runs. Consistency checks are made to ensure that only one action is scheduled for a particular component on a given date and time. No checks are performed for scheduling conflicts.

    Note:
    InterChange Server Express automatically handles changes between standard and daylight savings time for recurring events.
  5. Click either of the Show option check boxes to display specific information about schedules. The Show options are:
  6. Click OK or Apply to create the scheduled item, which is effective once InterChange Server Express receives the information.

    When InterChange Server Express and components are geographically distant, there can be a slight delay. If you need to immediate change the state of a component, it is preferable to use System Monitor to start, stop, or pause a component rather than the scheduler.

    Tip:
    To schedule a time interval when events are processed for a component, you must create a schedule with the Start action and another with the Stop or Pause action. See "About scheduling jobs" for information and examples about determining start and end schedules.

Modifying schedules

To modify an existing schedule for a collaboration or a connector:

  1. Right-click the component in System Manager, then select "Edit Components' schedule." The Schedule window appears (see Figure 14).
  2. Edit any field in the Schedule list window to change its value.

    To edit Recurrence options, click the cursor anywhere on the scheduled item row; the recurrent values for that scheduled item display in the Recurrence pane if they have been assigned.

  3. Click OK to save changes and exit, or click Apply to save changes and keep the window open.

Deleting schedules

To delete an existing schedule for a collaboration object or a connector:

  1. Right-click the component from System Manager, then select "Edit Components' schedule." The Schedule window appears (see Figure 14).
  2. Select a scheduled item in the schedule list and click the Delete button (or use the keyboard Delete key) to remove the schedule.
  3. Click OK to save changes and exit, or click Apply to save changes and keep the window open.

Displaying schedules

To display a schedule or a group of schedules:

  1. Select and open an object for displaying schedules:
  2. Click any of the column headings to sort schedules by that column.

Enabling or disabling schedules

To selectively disable or enable schedules:

  1. Select an object for displaying schedules.

    See "Displaying schedules".

  2. Enable or disable the schedule:
  3. Click Apply to complete this task.
  4. Click OK to exit.

Copyright IBM Corp. 2003