Submitting jobs

In a flexible management environment, you can submit jobs to remote nodes to manage applications, modify the product configuration on remote machines, or do a general purpose task such as run a script. You can specify when the jobs start, whether they are recurring, and when they expire.

Before you begin

Before you can submit a job, you must have registered at least one node with the job manager. A node can be an application server node that was first registered with an administrative agent or a deployment manager node.

Start the job manager and the target nodes. If a target node is a stand-alone application server, also start the administrative agent.

Your ID for the job manager must be authorized for the administrator role or the operator role to submit jobs. When you submit a job, you can specify a user name and password for authentication and authorization at the target node or nodes. If you do not provide a user name and password in the job parameters, the credentials for the job submitter at the job manager are used for this purpose. When you submit a job to multiple target nodes, the user name and password or the credentials for the submitter must apply to all the job targets.

You can simplify administration of multiple nodes by submitting jobs against groups of nodes. Each group of nodes represents a group of nodes. Before you can submit a job for a group of nodes, you must have created the group of nodes.

About this task

You can use the administrative console of the job manager to submit jobs to do tasks such as manage applications, modify the product configuration on remote workstations, or do general-purpose tasks such as run a script. To complete the job submission, choose the type of job, choose the nodes on which you want the job to run, specify the job parameters that are specific to the job type, schedule the job, review the summary, and submit the job.

The topics in this section describe how to submit jobs using the job manager console. Instead of using the job manager console, you can submit jobs from the command line using the wsadmin submitJob command in AdministrativeJobs command group. See the topic on administrative job types.

Procedure

  1. Click Jobs > Submit from the navigation tree of the job manager administrative console.
  2. Choose the job type.
    1. Select the job type from the list.

      The list of job types varies based on the nodes that you have registered with the job manager. The values displayed in the list are retrieved from the getJobTypes and getJobTypeMetadata commands of the AdminTask object. You can have job types that manage applications, modify the product configuration on remote machines, or do general-purpose tasks such as run a script.

    2. Optionally specify a description of the job.

      The description is a string that can be up to 256 characters. The default description is the job type. You can change or add to the default description. The description is useful when using the Find option to view existing jobs.

    3. Click Next.
  3. Choose the job targets.

    You are determining the nodes on which you want the job to run.

    1. Select a group of nodes from the list, or select Node name.

      Only groups of nodes that are valid for the job type that you selected are displayed in the list of groups of nodes.

    2. If you selected Node name, then enter a node name, and click Add, or generate a list of nodes by using the Find option.
      Node name that you enter
      If you enter a node name, it must be a node that has been registered to the job manager. The node name is validated when you click Next.
      List of node names
      1. Click Find.

        The Find nodes page is displayed.

      2. If you want to run the Find operation on specific keywords, specify a valid operator and a text string.

        The list of keywords is dynamic. Valid operators are = (equal to), != (not equal to), is null, and is not null. The text string can be complete or partial and can contain an asterisk (*) to include variable or unknown characters.

      3. Click Find.

        The results are displayed in the Available nodes list and are selected.

      4. Move nodes that you want to target from the Available nodes list to the Chosen nodes list.
        • To move specific nodes from the Available nodes list to the Chosen nodes list, select nodes in the Available nodes list and click >.
        • To move specific nodes from the Chosen nodes list to the Available nodes list, select nodes in the Chosen nodes list and click <.
      5. After you have a list of the wanted nodes in the Chosen nodes list, click OK.

        The nodes display on the Choose job targets page.

    3. Click Next.
  4. Specify the job parameters.

    The list of job parameters is dynamic and based on the job type. For example, if the job type is to install an application, specify the application name, the location of the application to install, and optionally the name of the server where the system installs the application.

    When you submit a job to multiple target nodes, the parameter values must apply to all the job targets.

    The following table describes the types of parameters.

    Parameter Type Description
    String You can enter text for the appropriate parameters. The text is not validated until the job is submitted.
    Node resource You can select a node resource. The Find option is available for you to search for the resource, depending on the job type that you selected in the first step.
    1. Optionally click Find if it is available.

      The Find node resources page is displayed.

    2. If you want to run the Find operation on specific keywords, specify a valid operator and a text string.

      The list of keywords is dynamic. Valid operators are = (equal to), != (not equal to), is null, and is not null. The text string can be complete or partial and can contain an asterisk (*) to include variable or unknown characters.

    3. Click Find.

      The results are displayed in the Available resources common to all selected endpoints list.

    4. Click OK to save the results and return to the page on specifying job parameters.
    5. Click Next.
  5. Schedule the job.

    The times and dates that you specify are relative to the job manager.

    1. Optionally specify one or more e-mail addresses where notifications are sent when the job is done.

      If you specify multiple e-mail addresses, separate them with commas. The e-mail addresses are saved in your console preferences. Each e-mail address is validated for format errors.

    2. Select when the job is available for submission.

      You can submit the job to be available now, or specify a time and date that the job is retrieved from the job manager.

    3. Select the job expiration.

      The job expiration is the time at which the job is no longer available for nodes to run. You can use the default expiration, specify a time and date for the job expiration, or specify an amount of time in which the job expires. The default expiration is defined on the Job manager configuration page.

    4. Optionally specify a recurring interval for the job, a start date and time for the interval, and an end date and time for the interval.
    5. Click Next.
  6. Review the summary, and submit the job.
    1. If you want to change the options, click Previous until you reach the page that you want to change. Make the correction on that page, and then proceed through the pages until you review the Summary and submit the job page.
    2. When you are satisfied with the options, click Finish to submit the job.

      The Job status collection page is displayed where only the status for the job that you submitted is displayed.

Results

After you submit a job, the job might not be run immediately. The job manager queues submitted jobs. The administrative agents and deployment managers poll the job manager for jobs when they are online, based on their configured polling intervals. The default polling interval is 30 seconds. It takes at least two polling cycles for administrative agents and deployment managers to retrieve jobs and then return results to the job manager. Depending on how long it takes for the node to process the job, it might take more cycles to complete the job.

What to do next

After you submit a job, the Job status page shows a unique job ID; for example, 122763380912576341. You can use the job ID to query, suspend, resume, or delete the job. When you click a job ID, you see the specific properties of that job, including activation and expiration time of the job and its status. If you click the job status link, you see the job history for each job target. Click the status refresh icon Specifies the refresh view icon for job status to refresh the displayed status.

You can check the state and status of a job using the job manager console or a wsadmin command.

The job state shows where the job is in the execution process from the job manager perspective. Table 1 lists the job states.

Table 1. Job states. The state indicates whether the job is active.
Job states Description
Pending You submitted the job, but the job is not available yet to be run on the targets.
Active One or more targets have started running the job.
Expired The job has expired. If a target started to run the job before it expired, the job continues running. After a job expires, a target cannot start running the job.
Suspended The job suspended operation. If a target started to run the job before it is suspended, the job continues running. After a job is suspended, a target cannot start running the job.

The job status shows a history of the job processing on a managed node. A typical job history is for the status to progress from Distributed to In progress to Succeeded. Table 2 shows the job status values.

Table 2. Job status descriptions. The status indicates whether the job completed successfully.
Job status Description
Not attempted The node has not received the job. The status is NOT_ATTEMPTED.
Distributed The node has received the job. The status is DISTRIBUTED.
In progress The node is running the job concurrently with other jobs. The status is ASYNC_IN_PROGRESS.
Failed The job failed and is no longer running. The status is FAILED.
Rejected The node rejected the job because, for example, the node does not support the job type. The status is REJECTED.
Succeeded Job completed successfully. The status is SUCCEEDED.
Partially succeeded Applies only to startCluster and stopCluster jobs where the cluster has multiple cluster members and to startApplication and stopApplication jobs where the application is installed on multiple targets. If only some cluster members are started or stopped or the application does not start on all application targets, the status of the job is PARTIALLY_SUCCEEDED.

By default, submitted jobs remain active for one day (24 hours). An active job is a running Java process that consumes machine resources. Delete jobs that you no longer need. You can use the job manager console Job status page. Click Jobs > Status, select the jobs, and click Delete.




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Last updated: Oct 21, 2010 7:37:48 AM CDT
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