Tech Arsenal 1/Tech Arsenal (Arsenal Computer).ISO/tek-05/hotop10.zip/HOTOP.DOC

Text File | 1992-12-03 | 13KB | 324 lines

HOT OPERATOR --

Unattended PC Production Job Scheduling

Network Ready/Multi-User Capable



NOTES:

The application Hot Operator and this document are copyrighted by Joey
Robichaux.

For ordering information, see the accompanying ORDER.FRM file.

Hot Operator is distributed as shareware -- this means I encourage users to
share copies of this product with their associates for their evaluation.
Users may freely use and evaluate Hot Operator.  However, after a 30 day
evaluation period, you must purchase a copy of Hot Operator to continue
use.

ASSOCIATION OF SHAREWARE PROFESSIONALS

This program is produced by a member of the Association of Shareware
Professionals (ASP).  ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle
works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem
with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to
help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an
ASP member, but does not provide technical support for members' products.
Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI 49442 or
send a CompuServe message via CompuServe Mail to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536.


Trademarks:

Dr. Switch is a trademark of Black and White International
SwapDos is a trademark of Innovative Data Concepts.





WHAT IS HOT OPERATOR?


What it's not -->  Hot Operator is NOT a menu program
                   Hot Operator is NOT a wakeup routine.


What it is    -->  Hot Operator runs production job schedules.  It can run
                   jobs directly at the touch of a key, or it can schedule
                   jobs to run a specific times or even certain days of
                   the week.  It can schedule jobs to run at intervals --
                   you may want a data collection routine to run every 30
                   minutes.  It can also check for "successful" job
                   completion.  If the job did not complete successfully, it
                   can automatically be scheduled to run again.

                   Hot Operator runs multi-user on your network.  This lets
                   you run Hot Operator on a dedicated PC at a remote user
                   site, yet your technical operations staff can still
                   maintain the job schedule in-house.

What it needs -->  Hot Operator uses a dedicated PC; it will not run in the
                   background while the PC is used for other purposes.

What it does  -->  Hot Operator maintains a list of production jobs.  A job
                   consists of a statement to be issued from a DOS prompt.
                   This statement will be issued at the appropriately
                   scheduled time.

Case Example:

ABC Industries recently installed a client-server based order taking
system.  The information systems staff and the order-taking crew are in two
separate buildings in two different cities.  However, all are attached to
Novell networks connected via a WAN.

Users enter orders all day at their workstations; the databases live on a
SQL SERVER database attached to the network.  At 4:30 pm each day, order
takers leave for the day.  However, someone must run a set of production
jobs that do posting, inventory maintenance, and management reporting.

Information Systems cannot run this production -- the databases are in a
different city and communications over the WAN would be too slow.  The
order-takers do not want to stay late to run the production schedule and
local management does not want to hire an operations staff.

ABC Industries orders HOT OPERATOR and plans to run it on a dedicated
work-station at the order-taker's site.  The HOT OPERATOR databases are
installed on a subdirectory on the file server.  Since HOT OPERATOR data
lives on the networked file server, Information Systems staff can build and
maintain production schedules and jobs remotely via multi-user access.
They schedule jobs to begin running at 11:00pm.

At 11:00pm, HOT OPERATOR kicks off the appropriate sequence of jobs.
Certain jobs only run on Friday evenings, others run every weekday night.
There's even a special cross-network upload that only runs on Sunday nights.

At first, the entire production schedule runs fine on the single dedicated
PC.  As the production load grows, things get a little tight.  It's
difficult for one workstation to complete the nightly production jobs.

Information Systems decides to try some "trickery" and "share" the
night-time load among some of the idle workstations at the order-taker
site.

They split the production schedule into three pieces.  Instead of adding
two more copies of HOT OPERATOR, they write two batch files that check for
the existence of a certain file.  If the file is not found, the batch file
loops and then rechecks for the file.  When the file is detected, the batch
file branches and begins a production schedule.  These two batch files are
installed on two of the faster order-taker PC's.  When the order takers
leave at 4:30, they start the batch files.

At 11:00 pm, HOT OPERATOR kicks off its production schedule.  The first
thing it does is create the "certain file" the other two PC's are waiting
for.  It then continues to run its part of the production schedule.  All
three PC's are now in gear!

It takes Information Systems several days before they get the work schedule
split up evenly enough to load all machines equally.  Since HOT OPERATOR is
a networked application, this is quite easy to do!




INSTALLING HOT OPERATOR:

HOT OPERATOR must run on a dedicated PC.  Although HOT OPERATOR will run in
less than 640K conventional RAM, you should have at least 640K RAM
installed, plus you should ideally have 1 to 2 meg of EMS/EEMS if you want
to take advantage of memory swapping routines (discussed later).

Although HOT OPERATOR runs on a dedicated PC, it should be installed to a
networked drive, not to the local drive.  If you install HOT OPERATOR on a
local drive, you lose the ability for multiple users to access the same set
of data.  HOT OPERATOR will work fine if installed on a local drive;
however, you lose the benefits of multi-user access.

To install, create a HOT OPERATOR subdirectory on the appropriate drive.
Copy all the HOT OPERATOR files to this subdirectory.

Make that subdirectory current if it is not.  Type "HOTOP" and press Enter.


RUNNING HOT OPERATOR

Hot Operator is "pick list" driven.  It presents a scrolling pick list of
currently defined jobs.

Use the up and down arrows to move the highlighted select bar up or down
the picklist.  If you move all the way to the bottom of the window, the
jobs will "scroll" to the next job.

Use the PgUp and PgDn keys to page forwards or backwards a screen at a
time.  The Home key and the End key bring you to the first record or the
last record in the list.

Insert new records by pressing the INSERT key; edit existing records by
highlighting the record and pressing the ENTER key; delete existing records
by highlighting a record and pressing the DELETE key.  You can "hot"
execute a job by highlighting the existing record and pressing the F2 key.
You can "quit" Hot Operator by pressing the ESCAPE key.


JOB RECORDS

A Job record contains 13 fields.  They are:

Job:            A six character Job identifier.  This field controls the
                sort sequence in the scrolling picklist.  It is the first
                field that appears in the scrolling picklist.  Since HOT
                OPERATOR checks the jobs sequentially, you can use this
                field to fine-tune the sequence of job execution.

Desc:           A short job description.  This field also appears in the
                scrolling picklist.

DOS COMMAND:    The command to be issued at the scheduled time.  This can
                be any command you can issue at a DOS prompt.  For example,

                        DIR B:*.* /p    or
                        C:\WORK\POSTING         or
                        D:\LOTUS\LOTUS
                        COMMAND /C DOALL.BAT

                Most of the time, you'll probably create batch commands
                to start your jobs.  You should use the format shown above:
                "COMMAND /C FILENAME.BAT".

                If your job needs more than a minimum of conventional RAM,
                you should use a software memory swapping device (discussed
                later).

SMTWTFS:        These are seven different fields.  They correspond with the
                seven days of the week.  Place an "X" or a space in these
                fields.  Use an "X" if you which the job to run on that
                day; use a space to exclude the job from running that day.

TodoTime:       What time do you want the job to run?  Use a military 24:00
                clock, ie: 11:00 pm = 23:00.

Interval:       How often should the job run?  How many minutes between
                runs?  You can use this in combination with the TodoTime
                field -- for example, nothing will happen until the
                TodoTime, at which point the job will be scheduled to run
                every "Interval" minutes.

Environ Var:    Do you want to check for successful completion?  If so, add
                a DOS statement to the end of your job that issues a SET to
                this environment variable.  For example,

                        SET RANOKAY=T

                Set this variable to T for success, or anything else for
                failure.  Enter this variable name in the Environment
                Variable field.  Hot Operator checks whether or not this
                variable is set to T.  If not, Hot Operator reschedules the
                job to run again in a few minutes.


MEMORY SWAPPING

When Hot Operator executes a job, it "shells" to DOS and issues the
command.  When Hot Operator "shells" to DOS, it leaves a copy of itself in
conventional RAM.  This means you'll usually have much less than 640K in
which to run your production jobs.  In fact, all you'll normally be able to
do are some simple DOS commands.

Because of this, Hot Operator supports the use of software memory swapping
devices.  These are third party products; you can use the product that
works best with your configuration.

Two popular memory swapping products are Dr. Switch by Black and White
International and SwapDos by Innovative Data Concepts.  SwapDos is a
shareware product.  Both allow memory swapping to various places (expanded
memory, extended memory, or even hard disk space)

Here are examples of both products:


USING DR. SWITCH

Install Dr. Switch and make sure a copy of DRSWITCH.EXE is accessible from
the Hot Operator subdirectory.  To memory swap using Dr. Switch, enter the
DOS COMMAND in the Hot Operator record like this:

                DRSWITCH xyz

This command will use Dr. Switch to swap Hot Operator out of conventional
RAM.  It then executes the job "xyz".  When "xyz" is finished, Dr. Switch
swaps Hot Operator back into conventional RAM.  This frees up the maximum
available conventional RAM.

You can use Dr. Switch to execute .EXE and .COM files; you can also execute
batch files.  You don't need to use any type of EXIT command at the end of
your job; ordinary job termination returns control to Hot Operator.


USING SWAPDOS

SwapDos is slightly more flexible than Dr. Switch.  SwapDos will let you
set "marks" in memory; you can then swap everything after a certain mark.
This lets you do things like temporarily removing unneeded TSR's.

You can also use SwapDos without marks.  To do this, enter this command in
the DOS COMMAND field:

                        SWAPDOS xyz

This swaps Hot Operator out of conventional ram and then executes the
program "xyz".



SECURITY MODE

Some sites need to "protect" the job definitions; they don't want anyone
editing the job definitions other than approved people.

To lock Hot Operator out of edit mode, just begin Hot Operator with any
dummy parameter.  For example:

                HOTOP X

This will ignore all edit, insert, or delete requests.  The job scheduling
will still occur, and users can still "hot" execute jobs by highlighting
them and pressing ENTER.



ADDRESSES:

For more information on Dr. Switch:

        Black and White International
        P. O. Box 1040
        Planetarium Station
        New York, N.Y.  10024-0541
        phone: [phone]


For more information on SwapDos:

        Innovative Data Concepts
        1657 The Fairways
        Suite 101
        Jenkintown, PA 19046
        voice: [phone]
        fax:   [phone]
        Compuserve: 75300,564


SHAREWARE