Migrate from Terma Software Jaws to CA Workload Automation iDash for Enhanced Workload Analytics

1 © 2015 CA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.@CAWORLD #CAWORLD
Migrate from Terma Software Jaws to CA Workload
Automation iDash for Enhanced Workload Analytics
Jack McCarrick
DevOps: Continuous Delivery
eCLARO, Inc
Senior IT Consultant
DO4X178S

© 2015 CA. All rights reserved. All trademarks referenced herein belong to their respective companies.
The content provided in this CA World 2015 presentation is intended for informational purposes only and does not form any type
of warranty. The information provided by a CA partner and/or CA customer has not been reviewed for accuracy by CA.
For Informational Purposes Only
Terms of this Presentation

Abstract
Do you have the right tools to predict when SLAs might
be at risk? Join us and hear first-hand about how a
major technology company converted from JAWS to CA
Workload Automation iDash (CA iDash) to adopt a
powerful, real-time workload analytics and reporting
solution.
Jack McCarrick
Senior IT Consultant
eClaro, Inc.

Agenda
MY BACKGROUND & OUR “WORKLOAD AUTOMATION” ENVIRONMENT
WHAT IS OUR “JAWS” ENVIRONMENT?
SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS
WHY DID WE CHOOSE IDASH?
MOVING FROM JAWS TO IDASH
IDASH ADVANTAGES: SOME NICE FEATURES
1
2
3
4
5
6

My Background
&
our “Workload Automation”
Environment

My Background….
 eClaro, Inc.
– ECLARO is a Business and Technology Consulting firm headquartered in
New York City with 14 offices across the United States, Canada and the
Philippines.
 Working through ECLARO since 1998 at a large technology
company (headquartered in Long Island, NY)
 I came out of the IBM Mainframe era! Started in 1974 with
OS/360 and progressed onwards! (Lots of Dinosaurs!)

My Background….
 IDMS Database
– DBA 1998 (1982) thru 2014 on the Mainframe
– System support (same period)
 ”CA Workload Automation AE (CA AutoSys®)” Admin
– Since 2004
– Release 3.4 to Release 4.5 conversion
– Release 4.5 to Release 11.0 conversion
– Undergoing upgrade from R 11.0 to R 11.3.6
 JAWS Admin and (now) CA iDash Admin

Our CA AutoSys (“Workload Automation”) Environment
 Running Release 11.0 and Release 11.3.6, concurrently
 Workload Control Center (CA-WCC): running with all CA
AutoSys instances
– WCC Release 11.0 – we use ‘hard coded’ EEM Policies
– WCC Release 11.3.6 – we employ ‘behind the scenes’ EEM Policy code
– (this has impact on use of EEM with CA iDash – topic for another day!)

Our CA AutoSys Instances:
“ACE”
Name
CA AutoSys
Environment
# Jobs # Runs/Day
“SVU” 11.0 TRN 27,600
“SVT” 11.0 DEV 36,200
“SVQ” 11.0 QA 28,400
“SVP” 11.0 PROD 26,000 500,000
“DV1” 11.3.6 Dev 8,600
“QA1” 11.3.6 QA 8,700
“PD1” 11.3.6 Prod 8,700 25,000

”What is our
JAWS
Environment?”

Our JAWS Environment
 JAWS “Prod” and “Test” Instances
– Both 64 bit
– Prod is Release 3.5.6; Test is 4.3.4 (fairly ‘old’ releases)
 PROD JAWS: all production Job Streams
– Approximately 130 job streams
– 70 job streams are monitored by Users (we have had a ‘hard sell’)
 TEST JAWS: used for Admin ‘testing’
– Applying patches, upgrading the release, etc

Focusing on our “Prod” JAWS Environment
 About 50 User tailored Reports
 Mainly used to issue SNMP output to generate emails
– “Job Stream Late” Alerts are 99% of those received
 “Real Time” monitoring not particularly used
 History: used, when needed, to ‘look back’ and investigate job
runs, etc

”Why did we choose
CA iDash ?”

What made us choose CA iDash to replace JAWS?
 IT Management decided:
– To switch to a product that was more integrated with existing licensed
CA Software
– IT Management wants to maintain relationship with CA (stay in “CA
Family”)
– CA Tech Support was a major factor (same company)
 Cost was comparable: CA iDash was about 15% more to
license
– But……….
 “LICENSING”:
– This was a factor in our decision (see next slide)
Cost & Licensing

LICENSING: CA iDash vs JAWS
Licensed by “Number of CA AutoSys Jobs”
 Right now, our license is for 100,000 jobs
 JAWS Prod is set up for 60,000
 JAWS Test is set up for 40,000
 One JAWS instance can ‘see’ mutiple CA AutoSys instances
 (depending upon the license for that particular JAWS)
‘JAWS’
License NOT limited by “Number of CA AutoSys Jobs”
 No limit to number of CA iDash instances
 Currently, two (2): CA iDash ‘test’ and ‘prod’
 Will create a ‘sandbox’ CA iDash R12 Instance
 One CA iDash instance can ‘see’ mutiple CA AutoSys instances
 (no limit with regard to number of jobs)
‘CA iDash’
“No Limit to CA iDash Instances gives GREAT VALUE to its cost, even if it is slightly more than JAWS”

What made us choose CA iDash to replace JAWS?
 Ease of Installation & Use
 Configuration for use is simple
 User Interface very friendly
 Reporting features
Other factors…..

CA iDash at my current Client:
 Currently, TWO CA iDash instances
– “Prod”: sees CA AutoSys SVP & PD1 (Prod Release 1.0 & 11.3.6)
– “Test”: sees CA AutoSys SVP, SVQ, QA1
– We could ‘mix and match’, pretty much at will
– We could easily install another CA iDash instance (no license limits)
– Installations are 64 bit
 We shall install CA iDash Release 12 to explore (as of 9/25/2015)

Converting JAWS Job Streams to CA iDash “SLAs”
 “Aim for the Target (job)”
– Find name of TARGET JOB (eg: C_ZZBJ0140010)
 Supply the JOB NAME
– Use the “SLA Helper” ( a Wizard); follow screens
– CA iDash reads job information; takes just moments
– Give the new SLA a name (if you wish it to be different from Job name)
 You are Off and Running (“in a (i) Dash”) !
“I created 40 SLAs (former Job Streams) in about two (2) hours”…Jack

Converting JAWS Job Streams to CA iDash “SLAs”
 “We have COMPLEX Job Streams”
– In JAWS, the LEARNING CURVE was ‘lengthy’
– All our night batch streams required heavy TRIMMING, just to make
the flow view ‘humanly understandable’
– Trimming took many hours, resulted in a “Critical Path” view
 CA iDash “SLA” generation:
– The WIZARD is a great “plus”
– Generation of SLA job flows takes moments (for complex flows)
– You get the Critical Path (“trimmed”) view AUTOMATICALLY!
– Thus, NO learning curve (or, not as much) !

SLA Created !
CA iDash
Created this
SLA
Definition in
about 3
seconds
“SLA
creation
seems
markedly
faster than
Job Stream
generation”

Converse: SLA Deletion? – “Admin performance”
“Saves time for the CA iDash Admin”
“SLA DELETION is
quick! Even if the
full SLA structure is
complex”

You can get Run History right away !

“CA iDash Advantages”

CA iDash “SLAs” vs JAWS “Job Stream”
 The SLA is already TRIMMED! (default)
– JAWS job streams, especially if ‘complex’, require effort (man hours) to
edit down to a recognizable view
– CA iDash does this automatically
– Saves time in SLA preparation (“it can save hours of work”)
– Less of a ‘learning curve’ for the CA iDash Admin
 Now, CA iDash does maintain the complexity internally…..

CA iDash “SLA” - automatically TRIMMED:
The “trimmed”
SLA is called
the
CRITICAL
PATH
This is about one-third
of the graphical view of
the
Critical Path
(done for presentation
purposes)

..same CA iDash “SLA” - the full monty !....
This is about 1/10 of the full graphical view !!

We also like this….
 SEPARATION of Job Flow and GANTT displays
 JAWS:
– Combined into ONE display
 CA iDash:
– Job Flow display
– GANTT display

JAWS
This GANTT display also indicates a ‘semblance’ of the actual Job Flow

CA iDash:
This Job Flow display shows the static dependencies

CA iDash:
”GANTT” display of same Job Flow

CA iDash “Real Time” Monitoring
Similar
to
JAWS

Btw…here is that same flow, FULL display
“Critical Path Distilled”

CA iDash “Reporting”
 Similar to JAWS, CA iDash has ‘shells’ of report types:
– Job Status Reports - CA AutoSys Event Reports
– Job Run Reports - SLA Trend Reports
– All are TAILORABLE for your needs
 Have you ever had users ask for CA AutoSys information?
– “I find myself using CA iDash more than I did JAWS to satisfy requests”
– “When did job XYZ run last week?”
– “I need all job Failures from 6am to 8am last Thursday”

CA iDash “Reporting”…..continued
 “Server Statistic Report”
– Gives you Graphical and Detail views (not in JAWS)
– Reports upon LATENCY automatically!
 In JAWS reports, you must ‘deduce’ latency to some extent
 (see examples on next slide)
Reporting features not available in JAWS.

CA iDash “Reporting”…..LATENCY

CA iDash “Reporting”…..EVENT

CA iDash “Reporting”…..Detail (Latency & Events)

 “CA AutoSys AUTOTRACK Reports”
– (one of my favorites!)
 When I am asked ‘who Force Started a job on Nov 1st ?”
 Go to CA AutoSys LOG, extract (grep) the log records for job and date/time
 Verify the event/run (force start)
 The LOG does NOT have the User ID who Force Started job
 But.. Autotrack does …..so, I run an Autotrack ‘scan’, create a file
 File has event (FORCE_START) and some user IDs
 I have to ‘match up’ the LOG and Autotrack date/time and ESTIMATE!

 “CA AutoSys AUTOTRACK Reports”
– (one of my favorites!)
 CA iDash does that work automatically
– Specify job(s), date range, etc., and…..
– Out comes your report!
– It’s as easy as that – and saves research time!
 (As with all reports, output can be HTML, XLS, PDF, CSV)

CA iDash “Reporting”…..my favorite (not in JAWS)

CA iDash - “Building Job History”:
“Here’s another feature we like a lot!”
 Both JAWS and CA iDash need CA AutoSys job history to
function
 CA AutoSys generates Job Run, Event, Audit history (once a
day)
 Both JAWS and CA iDash read this data (series of files)
 For JAWS, these files (“they can be quite large”) are COPIED
from the CA AutoSys server to the JAWS server to be read

CA iDash - “Building Job History”: (continued)
 For CA iDash, you have an option:
– Install an “CA iDash Agent” on your CA AutoSys server
– Then, from your CA AutoSys server, run the IDARCHIVE command
– IDARCHIVE will load the history data from where the files reside!
– You don’t need to COPY the history data
– (SAVES THE COPY EFFORT, AS WELL AS DISK SPACE)
– You can even run the IDARCHIVE command in an CA AutoSys job!
 “This is an CA iDash Admin feature we like a lot”

Example: CA iDash could do this, JAWS could not
 Request: if the Target Job runs over 60 minutes
– In this case, JAWS will **NOT** “TRIM out” the Parent jobs
– Job Stream monitoring MUST start at 12:00am, not 2:45am
– JAWS tends to monitor ‘job flows’

CA iDash: single job SLA was NOT an issue:
“Just select
the “SLA”
Job and let
CA iDash
monitor it!”

CA iDash: single job SLA: (part of job flow dependencies)
“The SLA Job (in blue)
is tracked.
But, CA iDash still
knows about all the
previous
dependencies in the
entire job flow!”
CA iDash can track
Job Flows or SINGLE
jobs

SUMMARY: (my own interpretation)
 Not trying to push CA iDash over JAWS – both are great
products!
 But, if you are curious, have an interest in CA iDash…. then…
– I definitely recommend to have a look at it!
– If you are a JAWS user: install CA iDash and test it out
– CA would gladly do a Proof Of Concept install for you
– You will definitely find things you like!
– Even if JAWS and CA iDash ‘come out even’, perhaps LICENSING could be
a deciding factor
– If you run CA AutoSys (WA) or CA 7®, CA iDash will complement them!

What would I like to see in CA iDash! (current: R 11.4)
 REPORTING: select criteria are Jobs, Machines, Statuses,
etc,..and DAYS! (eg: Nov 16th to Nov 20th)
– it would be nice if we could restrict to specific hours or ‘windows’ of
time in a day
– For example: “All Mornings last week”
 SNMP: include additional SLA fields that can be trapped by
network monitors such as NNMi and Open View (“give email
recipients additional info about their SLA”)

Follow Conversations At…
CA Workload Automation
Mainframe Theatre
CA Workload Automation iDash
DevOps Continuous Delivery Theatre
Thursday 1:00PM

For More Information
To learn more, please visit:
http://cainc.to/Nv2VOe
CA World ’15

Migrate from Terma Software Jaws to CA Workload Automation iDash for Enhanced Workload Analytics

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (20)

Similar to Migrate from Terma Software Jaws to CA Workload Automation iDash for Enhanced Workload Analytics

Similar to Migrate from Terma Software Jaws to CA Workload Automation iDash for Enhanced Workload Analytics (20)

More from CA Technologies

More from CA Technologies (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Migrate from Terma Software Jaws to CA Workload Automation iDash for Enhanced Workload Analytics