In a flexible management environment, a job manager allows
you to submit administrative jobs asynchronously for application servers
registered to administrative agents and for deployment managers. You
can submit these jobs to a large number of servers over a geographically
dispersed area.
You can make both application server nodes that are registered
to administrative agents and deployment managers known to the job
manager through a registration process. After you register application
server nodes and deployment managers with the job manager, you can
queue administrative jobs directed at the application server nodes
or deployment managers through the job manager.
To register application server nodes and deployment managers with
the job manager, use the wsadmin registerWithJobManager command. The
command is in the ManagedNodeAgent command group.
Use the job manager to asynchronously administer job submissions.
You can complete the following tasks:
- Set the job submission to take effect at a specified time.
- Set the job submission to expire at a specified time.
- Specify that the job submission occur at a specified time interval.
- Notify the administrator through e-mail that the job has completed.
Each application server node or deployment manager registered with
the job manager is known as a managed node to the job manager. Groups
of nodes are those groups that you create so that you can make job
submission easier. You can submit a job for a group of nodes instead
of entering multiple node names for a job.
Many of the management tasks that you can perform with the job
manager are tasks that you can already perform with the product, such
as application management, server management, and node management.
However, with the job manager, you can aggregate tasks and perform
those tasks across multiple application servers or deployment managers.
The following hypothetical company environments are examples of
situations where a job manager is useful:
- Branch office environment
- A business has a thousand stores geographically dispersed across
the continent. Each store contains either a few application servers,
or a small WebSphere® Application Server, Network Deployment cell
consisting of two or three machines. Each store is managed locally
for daily operations. However, each store is also connected to the
data center at the company headquarters, potentially thousands of
miles away. Some connections to the headquarters are at modem speeds.
The headquarters uses the job manager to periodically submit administrative
jobs for the stores.
- Environment consisting of hundreds of application servers
- An administrator sets up hundreds of low-cost machines running
identical clones of an application server. Each application server
node, which is registered with an administrative agent, is registered
with the job manager. The administrator uses the job manager to aggregate
administration commands across all the application servers, for example,
to create a new server, or to install or update an application.
- Environment consisting of dozens of deployment manager cells
- An administrator sets up hundreds of application servers, which
are divided into thirty different groups. Each group is configured
within a cell. The cells are geographically distributed over five
regions, consisting of three to seven cells per region. Each cell
is used to support one to fifteen member institutions, with a total
of 230 institutions supported. Each cell contains approximately thirty
applications, each running on a cluster of two for failover purposes,
resulting in a total of 1800 application servers. The administrator
uses the job manager to aggregate administration commands across all
the cells, for example, to start and stop servers, or to install or
update an application.
Example topology
The following example topology shows a deployment manager and a
federated node that is managed by the deployment manager on machine
A; two application servers, Profile01 and Profile 02, registered with
an administrative agent on machine C; a job manager on machine D;
and a Web server on machine B. Firewalls provide additional security
for the machines. The administrative agent and the deployment manager
are registered to the job manager. The administrative agent and deployment
manager periodically poll the job manager to determine whether the
job manager posted jobs that require action. Read the topic on planning
to install WebSphere Application Server for
further information on the topology.
