Managing Scheduled File Transfers › How You Manage Scheduled File Transfers

How You Manage Scheduled File Transfers

The Active File Transfer Monitor tells you if a file transfer is in progress, has completed, or has failed. The monitor does not alert you if an expected transfer does not occur or arrive within a scheduled period. To manage scheduled file transfers, you can define schedule monitor resources in the loaded system image.

In a schedule monitor resource definition, you can specify the following criteria and actions:

• The schedule within which transfers occur

  A schedule can have multiple transfer instances repeated at specific times. You can divide the time allocated for each instance into a preprocessing period, a processing period, and a post-processing period. This division enables you to perform some action for each period to support the transfers.

  For example, at the start of preprocessing, you can specify that the resource checks that required files are ready for transfer and raises an alert if the files are not ready. The alert lets you take corrective action before the transfer instance starts.

• The files scheduled to be transferred
• The recovery action for failed transfers, enabling them to be corrected within the scheduled period

You can monitor and act on these resources from the File Transfer Resource Monitor.

For a resource to manage the scheduled file transfers, it must be defined in the loaded system image. You can define the resource from the File Transfer Resource Monitor as follows:

1. Press F4 to add a resource.
2. Select the system image to which you want to add the resource.
3. Select the FTSCHD resource class to add a schedule monitor resource.
4. Complete the definition of the resource.

Example: Account Reporting

You have an SLA to provide account reports every Monday on client data you receive the previous Friday. The data is in a number of files transferred using FTP. You decide to use a file transfer schedule monitor resource definition to help you satisfy the SLA:

1. You specify a schedule window for the transfer on the Schedule panel of the definition:
   • You specify a preprocessing period before the expected start of the transfer so that you can check that you have enough storage to receive the files.
   • You specify a post-processing period after the expected completion of the transfer so that, if failure occurs, you can correct it before reports are generated from the transferred files.
2. You identify the files to monitored within the schedule window on the File Filters panel.
3. You create the following process definitions and specify them on the State Change Exits panel to automate actions:

   Note: A process is a definition you can create to automate a series of actions. It uses macros (distributed with the product) to perform those actions. You define processes through the Global Process List panel, which you access using the /RADMIN.GP panel shortcut. For more information about processes, see the Administration Guide.

   • A process to run at the start of the schedule window to check storage space (using the SYSCMD macro) and raise an alert (using the GENALERT macro) on shortage so that corrective actions can be taken
   • A process to run at post-processing to raise an alert (using the GENALERT macro) on failure so that corrective actions can be taken
   • A process to run at the end of the schedule window to submit the reporting job (using the SUBJOB macro) so that the reports can be transferred and ready for the client on Monday
4. You create a process definition and specify it on the Event Exits panel to raise alerts on individual failed file transfers, enabling you to correct the problems before the expected completion of the transfer. However, this exit does not tell you if a file has not arrived. The process you run at post-processing can catch this failure.

To ensure that your client actually receives the reports on time, you can create another resource to monitor the scheduled transfer of the reports.