The Monitor is the heart of Entire Operations. The Entire Operations Monitor is a complex program that is activated periodically and checks the definitions stored in the master database for any work to do. It activates and processes networks and jobs according to their prerequisites and controls running job networks, even if they reside on the nodes of different computers.
The Monitor performs the following functions:
Automatically activates scheduled networks (copies them to the active database);
Checks time windows for job or job network execution;
Checks input conditions and resources;
Submits jobs according to their (internal) priority;
Keeps track of jobs in the various queues of the operating system;
Analyzes the End-of-Job status of each job that terminated, determines which events have occurred and triggers appropriate system actions (set logical conditions, send messages, start programs);
Logs all important information;
Cleans up the active database.
The functions of the Entire Operations Monitor can be distributed to various subfunctions (subtasks). Using subtasking, certain processing steps can run in parallel and multi-processor environments can thus be used to optimize performance. Distributing typical Monitor functions is the responsibility of the system administrator.
In technical terms, there are two ways of running the Monitor: as one or several subtasks or as a batch task.
This document covers the following topics:
Monitor Defaults - Administration documentation
The individual functions that the Entire Operations Monitor performs can be distributed to several subtasks. Subtasking allows processes to run in parallel and increases performance. Monitor functions can be distributed to subtasks under z/OS, z/VSE, BS2000 and UNIX. Under BS2000 and UNIX, Monitor subtasks are separate processes in the operating system.
The Monitor can be run as one or several subtask(s) of an Entire System Server task in z/OS or z/VSE operating systems.
The JCL of the Entire System Server task (XCOM node) must be extended to meet the needs of the Monitor. The XCOM parameters must also be extended. The REGION assignment for the Entire System Server task must be large enough to contain the Monitor. For more details, see the section Installing Entire Operations on Mainframes and UNIX in the Installation and Setup documentation.
The advantages of this method are:
all Entire System Server calls of the Monitor against its host node are handled locally, without any inter-PROCESS communication, and
Entire System Server and the Entire Operations Monitor share the same address space.
The Monitor can be run as its own batch task in z/OS, BS2000 or UNIX.
The Monitor can run as any normal batch job. The functions it provides in this mode are the same as when it runs as an Entire System Server subtask. However, as a batch task, the Monitor requires that the operating system server node must be active all the time it is active itself.
The system administrator can define a time interval between Monitor task cycles. At the beginning of a task cycle, the Monitor "wakes up" and checks the Entire Operations work queues, performing any necessary actions such as submitting jobs and analyzing the End-of-Job status of each job that terminated. The shorter the wait time between task cycles, the shorter the interval between job termination and its End-of-Job analysis. The price for this is increased overhead due to Monitor reactivation.