Unicenter Autosys Job Management

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Unicenter Autosys Job Management is a workload automation (aka job scheduling) tool supplied by Computer Associates. The name of the product has gone through various iterations; as of 11.3 it will be known as "CA Workload Automation AE", the AE part referring to AutoSys Engine (there are other CA Workload Automation tools that have other suffixes).

The Application Servers and Schedulers are supported on: Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, Linux and Windows servers.

Clients (Remote Agents) can be run on Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Windows, z/OS, OS/390, zSeries, VSE, and OpenVMS.

Contents

[edit] History

AutoSys was first developed by William Arntz and Walter Goodwin who created AutoSystems Corp to market it. The product was then sold to Platinum Technology International in 1995 (one of many systems management companies acquired by Platinum Technology that year[1]). Platinum invested in new features and functionality including the Xpert and JobVision modules[2] . In May 1999, Platinum was itself acquired by Computer Associates (CA) for 3.5 billion U.S. dollars, at that time the largest transaction in the history of the software industry.[3] CA offered $29.25 per share, almost a three-to-one premium over Platinum's stock price of $9.875.[4] In 2006 CA was the subject of intense media scrutiny as it became clear that a $2.2 billion accounting fraud had been orchestrated by chief executive Sanjay Kumar[5]; however the popularity of the AutoSys product remained unaffected.

William Arntz later became Producer, Director, Screenwriter, President at Captured Light, makers of cult film "What the Bleep Do We Know!?".[6] Walter Goodwin became founder and CEO of Stirling Systems Group, LLC and later Terma Software Labs .[7]

[edit] Components

AutoSys r11 Instance

The AutoSys r11 architecture is a 3-tier architecture consisting of Client utilities, Application Server(s) / Scheduler Server(s) and Database(s). This architecture is a new concept for AutoSys and provides performance and scalability improvements when compared to previous releases. A SDK has been included with AutoSys r11 allowing in-house code to connect to the Application Server(s) in the same way as the supplied client (agent and interface) components.

[edit] Scheduler

Replaces the Event Processor. A multi-threaded process which selects events from the Event Server and processes them. Changes from 4.5 include multiple event batching and dynamic thread creation.

[edit] Application Server

A new component which handles the Database connectivity for the AutoSys r11 clients, Command Line Utilities and the GUIs. It has a persistent connection to the DB to allow improved response speed. It also removes the requirement of having a global database user/password.

[edit] Event Server

The DB containing the events. Differences from 4.5 include vendor library files for the Server and client components.

[edit] WCC

The default user interface for AutoSys is Workload Command Centre (WCC). It consists of a number of applets that provide job management:

  • Job Editor
  • Job Status Console
  • Job Flow Design
  • Job Flow Monitoring
  • Event Console
  • Reporting
  • JAWS (3rd party reporting tool)

[edit] Remote Agent

The Remote Agent is now a persistent process on all Operating Systems, it also loses its DB API making it independent of a particular AutoSys instance.

[edit] eEEM (aka eIAM)

eTrust Embedded Entitlements Manager is the replacement of the eTrust Access Control component seen in version 4.5. eEEM is a cut down version of eAC and is aimed at a single application access control point rather than a system based tool. It allows user and group access to AutoSys and WCC resources via an ACL administered GUI, access can be granted or denied based upon filters and groups or managed explicitly.

[edit] Common components

Several components used by AutoSys are shared with other CA products (e.g. CA NSM or CA Audit) and are stored in a common folder.

[edit] Versions

As of 9/17/2009, the most current version of the above components:

  • AutoSys: r11 sp2
  • Common Components: r11.2
  • eEEM: 8.3
  • WCC: r11.1 sp1

It is important to note exact versions when dealing with the product and CA-Support. For example, there is a world of difference between WCC r11.0 and WCC r11.1 sp1.

The current version has been GA since November 2007. This version comes with eIAM (Embedded Identity and Access management) security management module to secure access to scheduling resources.

The next version, known as r11.3, is expected in late 2009. r11.3 will herald the integration of the intelligent agents acquired with the Cybermation scheduling product (which will include, amongst other things; FTP, Database and Java job types). After r11.3, r11.5 will follow. r11.5 is discussed in IDC's "The Evolution of Job Scheduling: CA's Approach to Workload Automation" by Tim Grieser.[8]

[edit] R11 criticism

AutoSys r11 has been criticised in various user forums for a number of reasons. The delay in releasing the product was seen by some as a lack of investment by CA in one of their core products. Since its release the stability of r11 has been questioned particularly the Unix hosted versions. It's known some customers have been forced to postpone their deployment of r11 until these issues have been corrected and deployed on the other sites. Even when praising the r11 product one customer explained in Feb 2009 that his company "have had huge issues upgrading to r11" in a blog in February 2009.[9]

[edit] User groups and community

AutoSys has a large and active user community. In addition to localized user groups there are email and online forums where those interested can share information about the core AutoSys product, CA's bolt-on modules (like JobScape, HostScape, Timescape, Web Interface, Business Objects, WCC, eTrust Access Control & EEM), best practices (e.g. promoting JIL code through a development cycle) and 3rd party offerings (like iXp and JAWS).

[edit] Complementary products

A number of 3rd party products exist to complement CA's basic AutoSys functionality. Products include:

[edit] Education

Official AutoSys education courses are available from CA. Unofficial customisable courses are also available from Cevallos Consulting. There is a learning curve for those upgrading from AutoSys 4.x to AutoSys r11.x.[10]

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Platinum Acquire Viatech and Others". BusinessWire. 1995-02-10. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_/ai_16445437. Retrieved 2008-12-09. 
  2. ^ "PLATINUM technology strengthens provision job management with industry's first job flow visualization and modeling tool". prnewswire. 13 January, 1999. http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/release?id=33870. Retrieved 1999-01-13. 
  3. ^ "CA To Buy Platinum For $3.5 Billion". CRN. http://www.crn.com/it-channel/18803143. Retrieved 2007-08-29. 
  4. ^ "Computer Associates to Purchase a Rival". New York Times. March 30, 1999. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03EED61130F933A05750C0A96F958260. Retrieved 2008-05-18. 
  5. ^ "Ex-Leader of Computer Associates Gets 12-Year Sentence and Fine". November 3, 2006. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/technology/03computer.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin. Retrieved November 3, 2006. 
  6. ^ "About William Arntz at Captured Light". May 3, 2009. http://www.whatthebleep.com/makers/. Retrieved May 3, 2009. 
  7. ^ "About Walter Goodwin at Terma Software Labs". May 3, 2009. http://www.termalabs.com/management.htm. Retrieved May 3, 2009. 
  8. ^ "The Evolution of Job Scheduling: CA's Approach to Workload Automation by Tim Grieser". IDC. November, 2007. http://ca.com/files/IndustryAnalystReports/the_evolution_of_job_scheduling.pdf. Retrieved 2007-11-18. 
  9. ^ "Users discussing "huge issues upgrading to r11" in responses to a blog". Feb 23, 2009. http://autosys.wordpress.com/2009/02/16/to-r11-or-not-to-r11/. Retrieved 2009-02-23. 
  10. ^ "User explains that they are experiences difficulty coming to terms with r11 (see comments 52, 57 and 58)". August 21st, 2008 at 6:35 pm. http://www.leyton.org/2005/04/08/whither-autosys/all-comments/#comments. Retrieved August 21st, 2008 at 6:35 pm. 

[edit] See also

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