What the heck is Host Mode?

If you manage job scheduling, message management, and resource monitoring for more than one partition running IBM i, you should get acquainted with Host Mode. Host Mode lets you duplicate job setups and propagate message handling rules among your partitions and servers. Plus, it provides consolidated reporting, so you get the big picture of what is going on in your data center.

Background
If you been using the Robot products for several years, you may remember Product Masters. The Product Master allowed you use Robot/NETWORK to send new rules from the Robot/NETWORK Host to the various Robot/NETWORK Nodes (partitions or systems) in your network. This setup also allowed you to monitor the Robot products from a centralized Status Center in Robot/NETWORK. 

About three years ago, Help/Systems introduced Robot/NETWORK 10, a fully Java-based implementation with a new graphical user interface. As part of this redesign, Help/Systems decided to move the Product Master capabilities out of Robot/NETWORK and put them in the new versions of products as they were introduced.  

Using Host Mode
To use the Product Master capabilities, you must be running the Robot/SCHEDULE 10 Explorer (graphical interface) and connect to other systems or partitions using Host Mode. When you are in Host Mode, Robot/SCHEDULE communicates with Robot/NETWORK so that you can access any system mapped to Robot/NETWORK. 

Host Mode requires a little setup. To begin, define the connections you need. Open the System drop-down menu and select Connection Properties.

When the Connection Properties window displays, press the Add or Edit buttons to modify the connection.

Note: Make sure that the System Type is Robot/NETWORK Host.

Once you have defined your connections, use the drop-down address function to connect to your network in Host Mode.

So, what does Host Mode let you do? It provides these powerful capabilities:

• You can schedule jobs, manage messages, and monitor critical resources for multiple systems or partitions from a single console.
• You can distribute new message automation rules among systems or partitions.
• You can use it for change management, by creating jobs in a development partition and sending them to the production partition after testing.
• You get a single, unified interface for accessing all jobs and scheduling objects, and duplicating them to multiple systems.
• You can manage cross-system reactivity. When a batch process on one partition is a prerequisite for a process on another partition, you can automate your processes. Operators no longer have to check processes manually.
• You can use it for consolidated reporting. If you have multiple partitions to manage for job scheduling or message management, Host Mode offers the following consolidated reports:
  • Good Morning Report
  • Cross-System Reactive Jobs
  • Security (who changed what job)
  • Most Common Messages 

More information
For more information, check out the recorded Webinar, Centralize Management of Robot Jobs, QSYSOPR, and Resources with Robot/NETWORK, Robot/SCHEDULE, and Robot/CONSOLE, in the Resource Library on our Web site at www.helpsystems.com/resource-library/recorded-webinars. 

Contributed by Tom Huntington, Vice President of Technical Services