Scheduling jobs in the system

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:

Overview of scheduling jobs

Steps for creating schedules

Steps for modifying schedules

Steps for deleting schedules

Steps for displaying schedules

Steps for enabling or disabling schedules

Overview of scheduling jobs

You schedule jobs in System Manager in the Schedule window (see Figure 49). 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 49. System Manager 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. After a schedule is set, you can enable or disable its use.

The Schedule window allows you to determine the following items:

Component
The name of the connector or collaboration being scheduled.
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 (PST).
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.
Comments
Text field that contains comments you enter about the schedule.

If you want 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.

Overview of 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., depending on the PollFrequency setting. When you pause a connector, it stops polling until started again, but is still able to handle service call requests from InterChange Server Express. 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.

Overview of 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 Viewing 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 50, each collaboration object gets a dedicated time period when the connector is processing only that collaboration object's events.

Figure 50. Dedicated processing

Multiple collaboration objects can subscribe to the same business object. In that case, the object is sent to InterChange Server Express, 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.

Overview of 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 that the scheduler cannot change. For example, 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.

Steps for creating schedules

Perform the following steps to create a schedule for a collaboration or a connector:

  1. Open the Schedule window by right-clicking the Schedules folder in System Manager, then clicking Edit Components' schedule. The Schedule window appears, as shown in Figure 49.
  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; 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, select the date and time when the scheduled item occurs.

      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 (available from the Edit menu).

    3. In the Timezone field, select 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) and 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 comments in the Comments field. A maximum of 255 characters is allowed.
  4. If you want this schedule to be ongoing, select the Recurrence check box and enter information about the next occurrence of the action. Select 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. Select the Show Dependencies check box to display schedules for a collaboration object's bound connectors and collaborations
  6. Select the Show Expired check box to display schedules that have already processed and whose time to run has expired. Only non-recurring schedules expire.
  7. Click OK to create the scheduled item, which is effective after 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 change the state of a component immediately, use System Monitor, rather than the scheduler, to start, stop, or pause a component.

    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 Overview of scheduling jobs for information and examples about determining start and end schedules.

Steps for modifying schedules

Perform the following steps to modify an existing schedule for a collaboration or a connector:

  1. In System Manager, right-click the collaboration or connector, and click Edit Components' schedule. The Schedule window appears (see Figure 49).
  2. Edit any field in the Schedule 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 appear in the Recurrence pane if they have been assigned.

  3. Click OK to save changes and exit.

Steps for deleting schedules

Perform the following steps to delete an existing schedule for a collaboration object or a connector:

  1. In System Manager, right-click the collaboration or connector, and click Edit Components' schedule. The Schedule window appears (see Figure 49).
  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.

Steps for displaying schedules

Perform the following steps to display a schedule or a group of schedules:

  1. Select one of the following objects for displaying schedules:
  2. Click Component > Schedule from the main window to display all schedules in the system.
  3. Click any of the column headings in the Schedule window to sort schedules by that column.

Steps for enabling or disabling schedules

Perform the following steps to selectively disable or enable schedules:

  1. Select an object for displaying schedules.

    See Steps for displaying schedules..

  2. Enable or disable the schedule by doing one of the following in the Schedule window:
  3. Click OK to save and exit.

Copyright IBM Corp. 2004, 2005