Web-Based UI Built for use by any role within your organization, the Workload Control Center (WCC) provides a completely web-based graphical view into the AE environment. To assist with enhancing the end user Experience, the WCC provides many functions that have previously not been available. Greatly enhances end user experience, reduces the AE footprint within your enterprise infrastructure and increases productivity. Application Server New Job Types No Database Client Required Look Back Feature The AE Application handles the communication with the agents and also handles end user requests. AE now has 55 job types that include the ability to run Web Services, create and manipulate Java objects, natively control file transfers, monitor infrastructure aspects including disk, CPU, IP's, UNIX/Linux processes and Windows services as well as the and the ability to set and get SNMP values and the ability to natively control database activities that relate to your organizations critical business processes. With the introduction of the Application Server, database clients are no longer required on the AE agent machines. Often dependency relationships are built between jobs that have different run frequencies (i.e. JobA runs daily and JobB runs weekly). The look back feature provides the ability to include relative time as well as status when defining the starting conditions of a job (i.e. Start JobB if JobA has run successfully in the past 24 hours- s(joba, 24:00). The Application Server can scale horizontally to ensure that business transactions are processed reliably and, as will be discussed further in this document, reduces Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Increases business process intelligence, promotes standardization and reduces development time, risk and cost. The additional job types provide far greater native capabilities and reduces the dependence on scripts and other legacy automation routines. Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The overall database footprint of AE landscape is reduced and the database client licenses that were being consumed can be used in other areas in the organization. Increased operational efficiency. The look back feature was developed specifically to remove the cumbersome task of having to manually place jobs into an INACTIVE state in order to prevent them from running. Embedded Asset Level Security Native Reporting The security model provides the ability to delegate specific access to the back end objects such as jobs, calendars, cycles, global variables, machines and resources, as well as the ability to govern front end objects such as views, alerts, reports and the actions users are authorized to send to jobs. AE provides native reporting functions that include the ability to produce Summary, Details, Throughput, Event Summary and Event Status reports as well as the ability to produce Job Status Reports, Job Run Reports and Server Statistics reports. In addition, the reports can be exported to Microsoft Excel, PDF and HTML. Reduces exposure to security risks and creates a role-based asset access model. Users and groups can be provided access to only the assets under their responsibility. Dramatic efficiency and performance gains. Reporting will no longer need to be supported through database queries and/or similar facilities. Stakeholders can be kept up-to-date on historical job run performance as business processes run in real time.
Native E-Mail Notification Job attributes have been added to specify notification to a distribution list when job completion events occur. The e-mail can include various data points such as the job name, the time of the event, the agent the job ran on,etc., as well as customized content such as a link to documentation and/or recovery steps or, in the event of failure, the URL to the incident that was created in your internal service desk. Increased responsiveness to critical events and decreased operational overhead. Stakeholders can be notified directly from AE without the need for scripts, additional jobs or other outside means. Greater Failover Control Do Not Execute Event You can configure AE to allow the shadow scheduler to failback to the primary scheduler. In a failed-over state, the primary scheduler shuts down and the shadow scheduler takes over processing jobs/events. To allow the primary scheduler to resume processing events when the shadow scheduler fails or when you shut it down, specify a primary failback mode. Similar to ON_HOLD and ON_ICE, ON_NOEXEC eliminates the onetime behavior associated with ON_ICE and the releasing of downstream jobs behavior associated with ON_HOLD by bypassing the execution of a job. With ON_NOEXEC, AE considers the job as successfully completed even though AE does not execute the job itself. Reduced administrative overhead. Native AE Failback processes are far more automated. Greater control of the business process logic. This function significantly decreases the risk associated with jobs running prematurely. Virtual Resources Business Process Forecasting Advanced LDAP Integration Business Process Modeling Virtual Resources are logical resource pools that a job can consume prior to runtime and add a virtual construct that can be used as a dependency condition, similar to predecessor/successor, look back, date/time and calendar conditions. When Virtual Resources are consumed at runtime, you can control the release of those resources when the job completes. You can create forecast reports to view jobs that are scheduled to run during a specific period and use these reports to plan your business processes. Output of the report can be viewed in real-time or scheduled for viewing at a later date. In addition to basic LDAP directory integration where global users and global groups are resolved, AE provides the ability to access multiple Active Directory domains or forests. The AE user interface provides users a graphically-based view into the business process logic complete with predecessor/successor relationships and real-time job status. Greater control over finite resources that exist within your environment. Typical use cases involve controlling physical resources such as database connections, CPU utilization and 3rd party licenses. They are also useful for balancing load across agent machines as well as enforcing job priority and criticality. Forecasting the jobs that are to run over a custom defined timeframe increases insight into future processing when predicting scheduled downtime and/or planning system maintenance. Lower administration overhead associated with authentication policy and greater adherence to existing corporate-wide standards. Increases operational efficiency by providing insight into the relationships between the various jobs a business process is comprised of.
Enhanced Log File Access Access to std_out, std_err and the AE agent log files jobs create is provided through the web-based AE user interface with each unique run being captured. In addition, the user interface also provides access to the AE Scheduler/engine log file, providing string match functions. Restricts distinct user access to AE agent machines, speeds the problem resolution process and add efficiency to the level 1 triage processes. Expansion of Global Variables Operating System and Database Support Compliance Application Extended Calendaring Custom Cycles JIL Syntax Checking Streamlined Upgrade Paths Support for global variable substitution has been added to several AE job attributes. You can reference a global variable as part of the syntax of the command, connect_string, destination_file, ftp_local_name, ftp_remote_name, i5_library_list, i5_name, i5_params, monitor_cond, scp_local_name, scp_remote_dir, scp_remote_name, sp_name, sql_command, std_err_file, std_in_file, std_out_file, success_criteria, tablename, text_file_name, trigger_cond and watch_file job parameters. AE supports a broad array of operating systems and database vendor releases and versions. The Compliance Application, that runs as part of the DBMaint routine, tracks and reports the number and type of jobs defined, the total number of jobs processed per day, the number of agent machines defined and the total number of agent machines that have run workload, organized by date. Extended calendars uses Condition rules to generate a list of dates, similar to a standard calendar you may be familiar with; however extended calendars also provide the ability to determine the workdays included in the calendar, adjustments (+1, -1, etc.), a broader list of rescheduling criteria, non-workday actions and the ability to consider custom time periods (see Custom Cycles below) when defining calendar logic. Cycles provide the ability to specify custom time periods (weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.) when defining calendaring logic (i.e. 1st 7 workdays of the month). AE provides a syntax checker that identifies syntax errors within business process definitions prior to committing jobs to the AE database. All solution upgrades will be upgrades in place, meaning all currently defined assets (jobs, calendar, variables, machine definitions, security policy, views, etc.) will not require export Reduced overhead associated with the production promotion process and increased transparency to development staff. Assurance that CA is keeping in step with the latest operating system and database vendor support matrices. Reduces exposure to compliance issues, specifically overprovisioning of agents while providing valuable insight into historical processing metrics. Greater scheduling flexibility, reduced administrative overhead. This enhancement provides calendaring policy and rules that are not available in earlier releases of AE. Increased calendaring flexibility, Cycles significantly decrease the overhead associated with the annual re-creation of AE calendars. Reduces production failures and increases business process reliability. Shortened upgrade timeframes reduce downtime and speeds time to value as new, mission critical solution enhancements are made available.
Additional Job Grouping In addition to the box attribute, AE provides two new job attributes, Group and Application. These attributes provide the ability to logically group related jobs. Once defined, a user can include the Group and Application when performing actions (monitoring, sendevent, reporting, etc.). Simplifies the management of your business processes and provides additional job filtering constructs. Improved Scalability Must Start and Must Complete Agent On Line/Off Line Web Server Inclusion File Control s Exposed Web Services Based on the most recent QA benchmark tests, AE vastly outperforms legacy releases of the solution. AE includes the must_start_times and must_complete_times job attributes to define the time or a list of times that a job must start and/or must complete. If the job does not start or complete by the specified time, MUST_START_ALARM and/or MUST_COMPLETE_ALARM alarm(s) are issued for notification to stakeholders. The machine online and offline events provide the ability to set the status of an agent, either manually or in an automated fashion. When an offline event is sent, all jobs destined for the specified machine are placed in a hold-like (PEND_MACH) status without altering the job s upstream or downstream dependencies. When the machine is once again online, the processing resumes from the point at which the machine was placed offline, including controls that will throttle the volume of workload that is submitted. An Apache Tomcat web server is installed and configured as part of the AE installation providing native web service hosting capabilities. As an enhancement to the File Watcher job type, the File Trigger job type provides the ability to recognize when files have been created, updated, exist, do not exist, have been deleted, have grown or shrunk in size as well as the ability to interrogate file ownership and group specifications. Web services can be used to perform tasks such as retrieving a job s status and performing job actions (start, cancel, hold, etc.), meaning web-enabled applications can utilize web services to integrate directly with AE. The web services are based on the Representational State Transfer (REST) architecture. AE will handle the processing needs of your organization, providing assurance to the business stakeholders that new investments can be made without jeopardizing the reliability of AE. Reduces the risk and the financial effects associated with latent business processes. Provides greater agent control, reducing operational and administrative overhead. Provides a native platform for web services adoption to aid with increasing organizational maturity. Streamlined business process logic and reduced resource consumption. Meaningful, clean and documented web services reduces costly integration development efforts.
Workload Templates AE provides the ability to use an existing job as a template for creating other jobs. Once the Template is created, it is exposed to the user interface for use by one or many users and groups. Templates provide standardization and increases efficiency while reducing human error and development lifecycle time. Unlimited Dependency Clause The condition information for a job is no longer stored in the job and job2 tables, rather the ujo_job_cond table which is used for both display/reporting purposes. For that reason, a job can now have an unlimited length dependency clause. Unlimited support for business process complexity, minimizing the number of jobs to manage, monitor and administer. Unlimited support for business process complexity, minimizing the number of jobs to manage, monitor and administer.