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Overview and Statement of Purpose

 

The purpose of this document is to define a state-of-the-art batch scheduling system for use on Unix systems called OpenJCS (Job Control System). Through the intelligent use of load balancing, dependency control, scheduling, runbooks, queueing and resource allocation subsystems, the objective is to create a thoroughly integrated system of unmatched scheduling flexibility that still gives good visibility into system usage, while providing scalability and ease of use wherever possible.

 

Scheduling Features

 

OpenJCS has the features you have come to expect in enterprise class schedulers, such as:

 

v     Full dependency control between jobs and across job groups.

v     Calendar scheduling, including repetitive interval, and custom calendars.

v     Job queueing.

v     Resource control and allocation.

v     Ad hoc job scheduling and control.

v     Job monitoring and completion verification.

v     Automatic schedule recovery and restart in event of scheduling system shutdown.

v     Custom notifications for failed jobs.

 

But OpenJCS also provides some features you might not expect in a commercial scheduler, much less an Open Source scheduler:

 

v     The ability to aggregate hosts in ways that make sense to you.

v     The ability to see why a job is on hold, not just the fact that it is on hold.

v     The ability to share special OpenJCS variables between jobs, or even between systems.

v     The ability to look into a job as it executes.

v     An API for hooking your programs into OpenJCS.

v     The ability to integrate new dependencies and commands into OpenJCS.

v     Virtual Host definition so you can cluster hosts that share a given workload.

v     The ability to prompt for runtime parameters for jobs.

v     Security that lets you specify who can run what, when it can run, and under whose ID it can run.

v     Job Runbooks that allow greater control over how jobs run, and how to verify if they ran correctly.

v     Job Runtime Analysis.

v     Transparent dependency control across and between disparate systems, and the ability to synchronize jobs across and between these systems.

v     Job Interrupts,  Resumption, and Restart.

v     Specification of special pre-processors for jobs.

v     Transparent transfer of job files to target hosts.

 

 

Conceptual Basics

 

 

Batch Jobs and Events

 

OpenJCS is at its heart an event scheduler. So, what is an event in OpenJCS? An event can be any of the following:

 

v     A single command.

v     A file of commands to be executed.

v     A batch job.

v     Another dependency or schedule.

v     A file containing any combination of the above.

 

A batch job is a set of commands that are executed as a unit in OpenJCS’ own batch control system. The commands can be read from a file, or submitted a line at a time from the user’s standard input. The commands usually execute under the same user name as the user who submitted the job, but if the user is given sufficient permission, the job can be executed as another user as well. Once the job is successfully submitted, the user will be given a Job Number that can be used to track the status of the job when it begins to execute. From that point forward, the job is completely separate from the user’s process tree, and executes under the control and supervision of OpenJCS.

 

Dependencies

 

In OpenJCS, a dependency is anything that puts a condition on when an event can or cannot execute. For example, you might not want a job on server A to execute until another job on machine B has successfully finished. The batch control system contains a large variety of dependencies that the user may use in scheduling. Some of the dependencies available are: time and date scheduling (including drop dead date and repetitive interval scheduling), job dependency scheduling, scheduling by arbitrary logical expression, manual operation confirmation, file dependencies, resource dependencies, and job concurrency dependencies. These dependencies can be mixed and matched as desired.

 

Time and Date Scheduling – The ability to schedule events according to time and date dependencies is the most basic requirement for any scheduler. At the very least, a scheduler should be able to schedule by time of day, day of week, day of month, month of year, week of month, and any combination of these. OpenJCS can schedule according to all of these, plus other date combinations, such as: week of year, week of quarter, days before end of month, days, weeks or months until or since another date.

 

But OpenJCS can do more than just these. It also lets you define your own date patterns for things like business day calendars and fiscal calendars. This way, you can tailor your scheduling according to your calendars. OpenJCS even lets you define your own calendars and temporal units so that you can make your calendars as flexible as you want.

 

Logical Dependencies – OpenJCS allows you to schedule an event for when a condition becomes true, for whenever a condition becomes true, repeat the event while the condition is true, or repeat the event until a condition becomes true. So what makes up a logical condition? A logical condition results from the logical comparison between two items chosen from the following:

 

v     A constant or literal.

v     An environment variable.

v     A special JCS variable (see the JCS Variable section or the variable command for further information.

v     A piece of information about a current job as returned by jobinfo. (See library routine jobinfo)

v     A piece of information about a file as returned by finfo. (See library routine finfo)

v     A piece of information about a pending reply as returned by replyinfo. (See library routine replyinfo)

v     A piece of information about a jobqueue as returned by jobqinfo. (See library routine jobqinfo)

v     A piece of information about a resource as returned by resinfo. (See library routine resinfo)

v     A piece of information from an SNMP MIB.

v     The output of a programatically executable command.

 

Logical conditions can also be compounded by the use of AND and or, and can be negated with NOT. Perhaps a few examples will make this clearer.

 

Example 1: job –launch –file myfile –when finfo datafile,eof > 0 AND jobinfo joba,state = “FINISHED”

 

This will launch the job file myfile when the file datafile exists and is nonempty, and job joba has finished.

 

Example 2: schedule –whenever \`ps –eafl|grep sshd|wc –l\` < 1 –cmd /etc/init.d/sshd start

 

This will restart sshd whenever it is not found on the system.

 

Manual Confirmation – Sometimes, there are events that just can’t be accounted for automatically. For example, you may have to wait for a tape to arrive before a job can be launched. Or you may have to wait for a manual analysis of a report before continuing on a schedule. In cases such as these, it would be nice to be able to set the event up, and put it on hold until you are ready to release it for processing. OpenJCS allows for just such a mechanism. It allows you to specify that an event must receive manual confirmation from system management before it can be processed. It also allows you to tag the hold with a label that can be used to remind you why the event is on hold.

 

File Dependencies – Files are the essence of data processing. It would be nice to be able to schedule not only according to the existence (or non-existence) of a file, but also according to the characteristics of the file (empty, non-empty, open, closed, size, type,  permissions, modification date, and so on). OpenJCS allows you to make use of all of these dependency types in your scheduling.

 

Job Dependencies – When you have a job processing system, the relationships between jobs become extremely important. A job may depend on one or more other jobs completing before it can be launched. Fortunately, OpenJCS provides multiple ways to define job dependencies. It even lets you set up dependencies based on the current state of another job, even if that job is on another system.

 

Job Concurrency – Sometimes, you may only want a job to execute if one or more other jobs are currently running. OpenJCS allows you to specify job concurrencies that must (or must not) exist before a job can be launched, and these concurrencies can exist within a system, or across several systems. Job concurrencies are maintained via Job Runbooks.

 

Resource Dependencies – No matter how robust your systems are, they have their limits. Only so much of a resource is available at any time. There is only so much CPU available, only so much memory, so much bandwidth, and so on. The ability to distribute your workload according to resource availability is absolutely critical. Overloaded systems cause response time delays, and underloaded systems waste money. OpenJCS provides a way to define resources, and make your workload dependent on the availability of required resources. OpenJCS has a very flexible resource definition system that you can use to mirror the resources available in your environment. See the Resource section or the resource command for more information about resources in OpenJCS.

 

Other Dependencies – We have demonstrated lots of dependencies that dictate things that have to happen before a job can begin to execute, but what about if we want to start synchronizing jobs that are already executing? Well, OpenJCS provides mechanisms for doing just that. First off, OpenJCS provides special variables that can be shared between processes, jobs, users, groups and even systems in the domain. You can specify at what level the sharing takes place, and the owner of the variable can specify exactly what kind of access to the variable is allowed, and by whom. This creates unmatched opportunities for information sharing and job synchronization.

 

The second method of job synchronization available is in the job control shell (jcsh) itself. It provides a when command that releases a block for processing when a logical condition becomes true. This means you can effectively create dependencies that are checked while the job is executing, as opposed to being checked before the job can be released for processing.

 


 

Batch Environment Definitions

 

Job – A job is the central unit of work and entity management in this scheduler. A job is a batch process that can be formed by a single command, a series of commands or a file of commands. Once a job is successfully introduced, it is completely separate form the user’s process tree, and executes under OpenJCS’ batch environment. A job will be executed as a process that by default runs under the ID of the user that launched the job. The ID can be changed via the job’s job card or by commands that alter the job before it begins execution. A job is launched via the job -launch command.

 

Serial Queue – A series of jobs that execute sequentially. A serial queue can be created either via the job -launch command or by attaching an –after dependency to a job.

 

Jobqueue – A jobqueue is a way to restrict the parallel execution groups of jobs, and to enforce consistent standards on the jobs in the queue. The maximum number of jobs that can execute at one time in a jobqueue can be changed as needed.  Some of the restrictions and standards that can be placed on a queue are: minimum job priority a job must have to be admitted to the queue, maximum number of concurrent jobs in the queue, maximum load on the hosts serving the queue, job numbers that will be assigned to the queue, resources demanded by each job in the queue,  queue hierarchy, conditions placed on each job in the queue before it is permitted to execute and process execution priority profiles. Jobqueues can also be nested as desired, such that the jobs in a given queue are also counted toward the maximum number of simultaneous jobs in the parent of that queue. Jobqueues are managed via the jobq command.

 

Job Number Family -  A family of jobs that will receive similarly formatted job numbers, and will have similar dependencies placed on them. This permits jobs that are related to be viewed together easily. Job Number families are managed via the jobnum command.

 

Job State – In a job’s lifecycle, it can pass through several states. The states defined in this system for a job are:

 

Job State (Primary)

Meaning

Substates (Secondary)

EXEC

Job Is Active and Executing

EVAL – Job is being pre-processed.

INTRO – Job is being introduced into job input spooler.

EXEC – Job is executing.

VERIFY – Finished, verification proceeding.

SUSP

Job Is Active But on Hold

SUSP – Job suspended by system management.

SCHED

Job Has Not Yet Started Executing

HOLD – Job is on hold per System Management.

SCHED- Job has unfulfilled dependencies.

RESOURCE – Job has unmet resource needs.

WAIT – Jobs priority is lower than the fence for the queue, or the queue is already full.

RUNBOOK – Job is being evaluated according to its runbook.

LOCKED – Job has been locked by its runbook.

EOJ

Job Ended

OK – Job finished successfully.

WARN – Job finished with warnings.

ERR – Job finished with errors.

FAIL – Job failed before finishing.

ABORT – Job aborted by System Management.

 

 

Job Runbooks – A job runbook is a set of constraints, permissions and instructions to be performed at the introduction and conclusion of a job. The runbook is actually a file that contains the list of instructions and permissions, and it is associated with one or more jobs via the job -runbook command. In the file, some of the constraints that can be placed on the job are: who can launch the job, what its priority is, when it can run, what jobs it can run with (and which ones it can’t), how the job is permitted to log on, what machines are permitted to run the job, what job queue and job family it will use, dependencies that will be attached automatically to the job, and what shell it will use to execute. See the Runbook section for more information about Job Runbooks.

 

Preprocessors – Preprocessors are processes that read job files as input, use various types of substitutions to create the finished job file as output. The preprocessor could search the job for special reserved words, for example, and substitute in content specified by those reserved words.

 


 

Resources

 

Resources provide a way to restrict concurrency of jobs and simulate various aspects of system load management. For example, a resource can be created to limit the number of jobs accessing a given database at any given point in time, or a resource could be created to keep jobs from being launched when system load is too high, or when high user traffic is expected. A resource is created via the resource -add command. Once a resource is created, its use is not automatic. It has to be explicitly requested by the commands that support resource dependencies (job –launch, jobq and schedule, for example). An exception to this is when a resource requirement is set up in a job’s runbook (see Job Runbooks).

 

There are two different allocation methods for a resource. The first way it can be allocated is if the resource has a fixed maximum count attached to it. In this case, when a request is made for that resource, if there are enough unallocated units of that resource available, the request is granted, and the number of units requested are deducted from the number available. If there are not enough units of the resource available, the request is queued until there are enough units available.

 

The other allocation method for a resource occurs when the resource does not have a maximum count attached to it. Instead, it has an allocation rule attached to it. In this case, whenever the resource is requested, the attached rule is executed, and the results returned by the rule dictate whether the request is granted, denied or queued and retried later. This resource type is very useful for resources that are more aligned with performance metrics, such as system load, CPU usage, available memory, or network traffic levels.

 

JCS Variables

 

JCS Variables are similar to environment variables, but JCS variables can be shared between processes, jobs, users, groups, systems or even regions as desired. JCS variables can also be made permanent if desired. This creates opportunities for unparalleled information sharing. For example, a job can set a given JCS variable to a value, and another job that has appropriate access to the variable can read that value, without the jobs having to have any knowledge of each other. Or a job can wait for a given JCS variable to be set to a particular value, without having to know which job or process will be responsible for setting the variable to the desired value. JCS variables can be used to synchronize processes, share information, and set execution values, among other things. JCS variables make cooperative processing easier, even when that cooperation needs to extend between dissimilar systems. JCS variables also provide access security, so that the owner of a variable can specify who has access to the variable, and what access is available (ability to set a variable value, read a variable value or administer permissions for the variable). JCS Variables are managed via the variable command.

 

Regions

 

A region collection of related hosts. Jobs within a region can share JCS variables and resources. Regions can also be used as assignment targets for virtual hosts. A region can be a collection of individual hosts, subnets, supernets, portions of a DNS domain, or any combination of the above. A region can even be a collection of other regions. One particularly useful use for regions is gathering together systems that perform a similar function so that they can share variables and resources. Regions are managed via the region command.

 

Virtual Hosts

 

A virtual host is a load balancing device used to distribute jobs and commands among several target machines. This provides additional scalability in the scheduling mix. The user can choose from several load balancing algorithms: round robin, load based, cpu usage based, network traffic based, fewest concurrent jobs, job response time, resource based and based on an arbitrary rule provided by the user. For further information about how virtual hosts are defined, see the virtual command.

 

Once a virtual host is defined, jobqueues, resources and JCS variables can be defined and shared among the target members of that virtual host.

 

Ask/Reply Facility

 

The ask/reply facility permits a process to ask system management for information. When a process requests information via the ask command, the process is stopped until the request is answered via the reply command. Also, the recall command will show all outstanding reply commands. Finally, the automatic reply facility provides a way to specify answers that should be provided automatically to selected ask commands. Automatic replies are specified via the autoreply command.

 

Rulesets

 

Rulesets are scripts or collections of commands used for various purposes by the scheduling system. Rulesets can, for example, open and close queues, determine how resources should be allocated, determine which host should launch a job or select the queue for a job. Rulesets are managed via the rule command.

 

Object Scope

 

A unique aspect of OpenJCS is object scope. The scope of an object is the range for which the object is defined. For example, an object can be limited to a user, a job, a host, a region or can have no limits at all (i.e. it will be defined all across the scheduling domain). An object scope has four parts: locality, user, job/process and class. You can specify any combination of  of these parts in the scope of an object, or none of them. If no scope is specified for an object, and no default scope is specified for the object, it is assumed to be a global object (by default, only system managers can specify global objects). The locality portion of a scope definition specifies what host or hosts can see the object. Some examples of locality scope are: host, region, virtual host, and domain. The user portion of a scope definition specifies what user or users can see the object. Examples of user scope are: user, group or role. Job/process scope specifies what jobs or processes can see an object. Examples of job/process scope are: job, process, process tree, jobqueue or job number family. Class scope is rather arbitrary in nature, and is not specifically tied to any particular aspect of the scheduling system, which makes it potentially useful for defining relationships that are not immediately obvious, or for partitioning the other scopes into more finely grained units.

 

A particularly useful application of scope is in the definition of variables and how they are shared. Because of scope definition, you can have two distinct variables with the same name, as long as their scopes do not overlap. For example, you could have a variable named JOBS_REMAINING on host a with its scope set to host a, and a different variable named JOBS_REMAINING on host b with its scope set to host b. The two hosts would only see their own JOBS_REMAINING variable. Or for another example, suppose you wanted to create a variable called ACCT_UPDATING visible only to your Accounting machines. For this, you would first create a region that encompasses your Accounting machines, then create a variable ACCT_UPDATING whose scope is that particular region. Scope is a very useful means of defining who can see what in the scheduling environment.

 

Default scope for an object is defined via the scope command.

 

The objects that can be given scope are: variables, resources, jobs, jobqueues, job number families, auto-replies and virtual hosts.

 

Examples of scope usage in creating objects:

 

variable shutdown%global=0

 

Creates a global (visible to the whole domain) variable called shutdown, and assigns it a value of 0. By default, this command will work only if the user issuing it is a system manager.

 

scope resource:hosta* -for host:hosta -to host:hosta

resource –add –limit 3 hosta_db

 

Creates a resource named hosta_db local to host hosta (assuming the resource command was issued from hosta), and allows up to 3 of this resource to be allocated at any time. Note that the scope command says that any resource created on hosta that begins with hosta will be limited to that host only.