Getting Started with Job Management Manager › System Management and Normal Maintenance

System Management and Normal Maintenance

This section contains some hints from experienced Job Management Manager users.

System management is simplified with the manager. However, Job Management Manager detached processes behave differently from commands running under OpenVMS batch mode. Comparing Job Management Manager Detached Processes with OpenVMS Standard Batch Processes in the "An Overview of Job Management Manager" chapter gives a detailed comparison between the manager and OpenVMS Batch Processing.

Because privileged operators can modify or delete jobs, privileges can be used with caution. As an alternative, you can consider using EXECUTE identifiers, to allow efficient running without privileges.

You can create user-defined keys for frequently used Job Management Manager DCL commands.

At a minimum, operators must know how to do the following:

• Tell what jobs are running. For example:

  	$ SCHEDULE SHOW JOBS/STATUS=RUNNING
  

• Abort a job
• Hold or release groups of jobs (in case a problem arises)
• Set or clear dependencies for jobs to resume the production cycle

The following hints can help you perform normal maintenance:

• If the log file grows beyond 5000 blocks, it slows product performance. Use the following command to close the log file:

  SCHEDULE CLOSE LOG_FILE
  

  This command renames the file to filename.OLD and creates new version of the file.

• To include summary information in the new file, use this command:

  SCHEDULE CLOSE LOG_FILE/SUMMARIZE
  

• You can create a Job Management Manager job to execute this command at regular intervals. You could also write a procedure like the following and run it daily:

  $ SCHED_LOG     = "NSCHED$:VERMONT_CREAMERY.LOG"
  $!
  $ IF F$FILE(SCHED_LOG,"EOF") .GT. 2000
  $    THEN
  $        SCHEDULE CLOSE LOG_FILE
  $        MAIL NL: SYSTEM/SUBJECT="THE SCHEDULER LOG FILE HAS 
  			BEEN CLOSED"
  $    ENDIF
  $ EXIT
  

• If many jobs are added and deleted, the job database becomes fragmented. Use the following command to show the number of deleted jobs:

  $ SCHEDULE SHOW DELETES
  

• If the number of deleted jobs is greater than 250-300, stop the manager, and then use the following command to run a program that defragments your job database:

  $ SCHEDULE OPTIMIZE DATABASE
  

  Note: SCHEDULE OPTIMIZE DATABASE resets the counter of deleted jobs to zero.

  You must restart the manager after running OPTIMIZE DATABASE.

  You can stop the manager while jobs are running as long as it starts again before they complete.

  If a job completes while the manager is stopped, the job finishes typically, but the manager gets a false status--"job was aborted". If the job is set up to restart, it does a job restart.

  Use the command SCHED SHOW SCHEDULED_RUNS to predict future runs of specified jobs. This command uses the historical job run data to predict the job run schedule, and provides an output qualifier that allows you to print a hardcopy report of the schedule. See the CA Job Management for OpenVMS Command Reference Guide for additional information and associated qualifiers for this command.

  Use the command SCHED SHOW HISTORY for information about the execution history of selected jobs. The history log name can be specified; by default the current log is used to extract the requested information. See the CA Job Management for OpenVMS Command Reference Guide for additional information and associated qualifiers for this command.