Process Scheduling Via CICS/DB2 Transaction

Process Scheduling Via CICS/DB2 Transaction

      There is an ever increasing need for applications, systems and
functions to execute without operator intervention, on a regular
basis.  With most of the products that IBM gives to the customer, it
is assumed that, if if this is a requirement, it must be designed and
developed BY THE CUSTOMER.  Almost anything that we do as a
background task could be considered "schedulable" and therefore could
be a candidate for operatorless initiation and termination.  The
Process Scheduler was designed and implemented with designed and
implemented with the capabilities of:

o   allowing a customer to run applications and processes:
    -   within a Time Frame (From noon till 5 p.m.), or
    -   as a Triggered transaction based upon set criteria from
        another transaction using the scheduler;

o   allowing production control or other monitoring jobs to note the
    taskid of a given task in progress;

o   forcing only ONE transaction doing the same function for the same
    application to run at any given time;

o   stopping a transaction or All transactions;

o   resetting processes which were stopped for serious reasons;

o   restarting applications that were prematurely ended;

o   determining when a transaction should not be started due to

o   limitations on restart; and

o   controlling the transaction environment, based upon customer
    parameters.

The Process Scheduler's characteristics are as follows:

o   It is a long-running CICS* task which "wakes up" at a
    customer-determined interval.

o     It interrogates a Process Control Table which delineates ALL
    transactions (CICS or IMS) which are started by the Process
    Scheduler.

o     It determines, based upon...