Why use Event Monitors?

Many of your scheduling needs on Windows, UNIX, and Linux servers are based on file arrival information. For example, a file arrives from an external source, such as a retail point-of-sale terminal, and a job needs to be launched to process the file or react to the directory that contains the changed file. Many companies use a string of timed jobs to process files that arrive on their Windows, UNIX, and Linux servers. A schedule of timed jobs works well when everything goes as planned. But, what happens if a file doesn’t arrive before the timed job begins? This usually results in a job schedule that can’t complete properly, or at all.

Robot/SCHEDULE Enterprise addresses these problems with Event Monitors, which allow you to create an event-driven schedule for your enterprise using system events on your Windows, UNIX, and Linux servers to launch reactive jobs through Robot/SCHEDULE. It’s easy to create flexible job schedules across your enterprise. You can use events or jobs from your System i, Windows, UNIX, or Linux server as a prerequisite to a job on any of your servers.

You can monitor your enterprise for events such as changes to a file or directory, a file that’s not growing, an application or a daemon starting, or your own user-defined events. Then, just define the monitored event as a prerequisite for a Robot/SCHEDULE reactive job. For example, a file arriving on a Windows server could launch a job on your AIX server, which could then launch a job on your System i. Or, you might check every minute to make sure a critical daemon is running on your AIX server. If the daemon ends, you can launch a script to restart it and notify your team. Application developers also can trigger events from their programs through API interfaces to Robot/SCHEDULE Enterprise.

Robot/SCHEDULE Enterprise is completely integrated with Robot/SCHEDULE, so you can use the Robot/SCHEDULE Explorer to set up and manage Event Monitors. The same easy-to-use tools you’re already familiar with—job blueprints, schedule forecasts, the Schedule Activity Monitor—make it simple to monitor your enterprise jobs and Event Monitors. Robot/SCHEDULE maintains a complete history of monitored events, saving time if you need to diagnose a processing problem quickly.

Event-driven scheduling takes away the guessing game for enterprise scheduling. And, Robot/SCHEDULE Enterprise ensures that your jobs run when they’re supposed to—even when the triggering event is on another server.

The job schedule blueprint above shows a small scale event-driven schedule. The arrival of two files on the Vista server starts a Windows job to process the files. When this job completes, the file are automatically transferred to the System i. Robot/SCHEDULE enterprise lets you create an event-driven job schedule across multiple platforms.

For more information about Robot/SCHEDULE Enterprise, contact your Help/Systems Regional Sales Manager.

By Josh Richards, Technical Writer