Third Party Scheduler

Challenge

Successfully integrate a third-party scheduler with PowerCenter. This Best Practice describes various levels to integrate a third-party scheduler.

Description

Tasks such as getting server and session properties, session status, or starting or stopping a workflow or a task can be performed either through the Workflow Monitor or by integrating a third-party scheduler with PowerCenter. A third-party scheduler can be integrated with PowerCenter at any of several levels. The level of integration depends on the complexity of the workflow/schedule and the skill sets of production support personnel.

Many companies want to automate the scheduling process by using scripts or third-party schedulers. In some cases, they are using a standard scheduler and want to continue using it to drive the scheduling process.

A third-party scheduler can start or stop a workflow or task, obtain session statistics, and get server details using the pmcmd commands. Pmcmd is a program used to communicate with the PowerCenter server.

Third Party Scheduler Integration Levels

In general, there are three levels of integration between a third-party scheduler and PowerCenter: Low, Medium, and High.

Low Level

Low-level integration refers to a third-party scheduler kicking off the initial PowerCenter workflow. This process subsequently kicks off the rest of the tasks or sessions. The PowerCenter scheduler handles all processes and dependencies after the third-party scheduler has kicked off the initial workflow. In this level of integration, nearly all control lies with the PowerCenter scheduler.

This type of integration is very simple to implement because the third-party scheduler kicks off only one process. It is only used as a loophole to fulfil a corporate mandate on a standard scheduler. This type of integration also takes advantage of the robust functionality offered by the Workflow Monitor.

Low-level integration requires production support personnel to have a thorough knowledge of PowerCenter. Because Production Support personnel in many companies are only knowledgeable about the companys standard scheduler, one of the main disadvantages of this level of integration is that if a batch fails at some point, the Production Support personnel may not be able to determine the exact breakpoint. Thus, the majority of the production support burden falls back on the Project Development team.

Medium Level

With Medium-level integration, a third-party scheduler kicks off some, but not all, workflows or tasks. Within the tasks, many sessions may be defined with dependencies. PowerCenter controls the dependencies within the tasks.

With this level of integration, control is shared between PowerCenter and the third-party scheduler, which requires more integration between the third-party scheduler and PowerCenter. Medium-level integration requires Production Support personnel to have a fairly good knowledge of PowerCenter and also of the scheduling tool. If they do not have in-depth knowledge about the tool, they may be unable to fix problems that arise, so the production support burden is shared between the Project Development team and the Production Support team.

High Level

With High-level integration, the third-party scheduler has full control of scheduling and kicks off all PowerCenter sessions. In this case, the third-party scheduler is responsible for controlling all dependencies among the sessions. This type of integration is the most complex to implement because there are many more interactions between the third-party scheduler and PowerCenter.

Production Support personnel may have limited knowledge of PowerCenter but must have thorough knowledge of the scheduling tool. Because Production Support personnel in many companies are knowledgeable only about the companys standard scheduler, one of the main advantages of this level of integration is that if the batch fails at some point, the Production Support personnel are usually able to determine the exact breakpoint. Thus, the production support burden lies with the Production Support team.

Sample Scheduler Script

There are many independent scheduling tools on the market. The following is an example of a AutoSys script that can be used to start tasks; it is included here simply as an illustration of how a scheduler can be implemented in the PowerCenter environment. This script can also capture the return codes, and abort on error, returning a success or failure (with associated return codes to the command line or the Autosys GUI monitor).

# Name:                 jobname.job
# Author:                Author Name
# Date:                            01/03/2005
# Description: 
# Schedule:             Daily
#
# Modification History
# When  Who             Why
#
#------------------------------------------------------------------

. jobstart $0 $*

# set variables
ERR_DIR=/tmp

# Temporary file will be created to store all the Error Information
# The file format is TDDHHMISS<PROCESS-ID>.lst
curDayTime=`date +%d%H%M%S`
FName=T$CurDayTime$$.lst

if [ $STEP -le 1 ]
then
        echo "Step 1: RUNNING wf_stg_tmp_product_xref_table..."

        cd /dbvol03/vendor/informatica/pmserver/
       #pmcmd startworkflow -s ah-hp9:4001 -u Administrator -p informat01 wf_stg_tmp_product_xref_table
       #pmcmd starttask -s ah-hp9:4001 -u Administrator -p informat01 -f FINDW_SRC_STG -w  WF_STG_TMP_PRODUCT_XREF_TABLE -wait s_M_S

# The above lines need to be edited to include the name of the workflow or the task that you are attempting to start.

TG_TMP_PRODUCT_XREF_TABLE

        # Checking whether to abort the Current Process or not
        RetVal=$?
        echo "Status = $RetVal"
        if [ $RetVal -ge 1 ]
        then
           jobend abnormal "Step 1: Failed wf_stg_tmp_product_xref_table...\n"
           exit 1
        fi
        echo "Step 1: Successful"
fi

jobend normal

exit 0