Tips & Techniques > Systems Management

Multiple Scheduling Environments Create a Buzz

June 2006 | by Brian Younger

Over the last several years, the IT industry has coined buzzword after buzzword. While many are just that, some have changed the IT landscape. One in particular is high availability (HA), which for many is a way of life. So what does Multiple Scheduling Environments within IBM's Advanced Job Scheduler (AJS) and HA have in common? Data. By default, all of the information that defines a scheduled job, calendar or job dependency is data stored in physical files found in the AJS product data library QUSRIJS. In an HA situation, this AJS product data should be replicated to another system or LPAR. Replicating the data is easy for HA solutions, and it isn't a problem for AJS. It is, however, tricky when the backup system/LPAR (backup) has some of its own scheduling to perform. In this case, you wouldn't want the data from the production system/LPAR (production) environment to be replicated into an active scheduling environment data library on the backup system; it's possible that scheduled jobs from the production environment would inadvertently start running on the backup system.

In i5/OS* V5R3, AJS was enhanced to manage multiple scheduling environments. A scheduling environment is basically a copy of the QUSRIJS data library and its objects into another library. QUSRIJS is the data library created during the install of the AJS product. Each scheduling environment is its own scheduling entity and can be accessed and managed using AJS interfaces. When defining the scheduling environment within AJS, a monitor switch is available to designate whether the scheduling environment can be active. A scheduling environment must be active to automatically submit jobs. You probably wouldn't want a replicated environment to become active if the source system/LPAR was also active because the same job would be submitted for each active environment (source and replicated environments). However, there are many times when you'd want multiple environments active at the same time. I'll outline these cases later.

Creating a Scheduling Environment
Let's examine the steps for creating a scheduling environment on the backup. This allows the original schedule of jobs for the backup and the production scheduled jobs to co-exist, and if needed, they can be initiated at the same time. Keep in mind that within AJS, a scheduling environment is a data library. iSeries* Navigator is required for creating a scheduling environment. (Note: If you don't currently have iSeries Navigator loaded on your PC, refer to Connecting to iSeries>iSeries Navigator>Installing iSeries Navigator in the iSeries Information Center (http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/iseries/v5r3/index.jsp). You can refer to Systems management>Work management>Manage daily work>Schedule jobs>Advanced Job Scheduler>Install the Advanced Job Scheduler in the iSeries Information Center for help with installing the AJS plug-in.

To create a scheduling environment based on our HA situation, take these steps:

Change the HA solution on the production system to replicate the QUSRIJS library to QUSRIJSPRD on the backup system. If the QUSRIJSPRD library must exist first, save the QUSRIJS library on the production system and restore on the backup system using keyword RSTLIB(QUSRIJSPRD) on the Restore Library (RSTLIB) command.
From iSeries Navigator, expand your backup system>Work Management.
Right-click "Advanced Job Scheduler" and select "Properties."
Select the Data Libraries tab (see Figure 1).
Click "Add."
Enter "QUSRIJSPRD" as the library.
Enter a brief description.
Specify "No" to monitor the data library and click "OK" to add the data library (see Figure 2). AJS on the backup system is now aware of the production environment.

You now have two environments on the backup system. The original data library, QUSRIJS, is active, and the QUSRIJSPRD isn't active. If a disaster happened to the production system, you could change the monitor switch to "Yes" for QUSRIJSPRD on your backup system. Then on a command line for your backup system, enter STRJS DTALIB (QUSRIJSPRD) to start the monitor for the production environment. The backup system, which is now acting as production, is running jobs from the original backup environment (QUSRIJS) as well as the production environment (QUSRIJSPRD) at the same time.

While multiple scheduling environments are great for HA situations, they're also great for implementing production and test environments on the same system/LPAR.

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