Phantom Job Scheduler

I am writing a basic program to execute programs in phantom mode. Right now, the main program executes all of the individual programs at 1 am. Will be adding in features to specify what time to start each individual program at, what frequency (daily,monthly,etc), pause the individual program . If you can think of any other features that may be helpful, please let me know. Eventually I plan on releasing the program for anyone's use. If you need something like this now, let me know.

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Dave Schwartz
Self Registered
FORT LAUDERDALE FL US
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I am writing a basic program to execute programs in phantom mode. Right now, the main program executes all of the individual programs at 1 am. Will be adding in features to specify what time to start each individual program at, what frequency (daily,monthly,etc), pause the individual program . If you can think of any other features that may be helpful, please let me know. Eventually I plan on releasing the program for anyone's use. If you need something like this now, let me know.

------------------------------
Dave Schwartz
Self Registered
FORT LAUDERDALE FL US
------------------------------

I am writing a basic program to execute programs in phantom mode. Right now, the main program executes all of the individual programs at 1 am. Will be adding in features to specify what time to start each individual program at, what frequency (daily,monthly,etc), pause the individual program . If you can think of any other features that may be helpful, please let me know. Eventually I plan on releasing the program for anyone's use. If you need something like this now, let me know.

------------------------------
Dave Schwartz
Self Registered
FORT LAUDERDALE FL US
------------------------------

I am writing a basic program to execute programs in phantom mode. Right now, the main program executes all of the individual programs at 1 am. Will be adding in features to specify what time to start each individual program at, what frequency (daily,monthly,etc), pause the individual program . If you can think of any other features that may be helpful, please let me know. Eventually I plan on releasing the program for anyone's use. If you need something like this now, let me know.

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Dave Schwartz
Self Registered
FORT LAUDERDALE FL US
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Hi Dave,

for flexibility, I suggest that it reads a file which has the details in it :

1. program to run.
2. one off or regular occurance
3. time to run
4. date / day of week or month to run
5. account (& user?) to run in 
6. time & date last run (to avoid running multiple times in the one period)

eg1 : end of month program  ;  runs regular occurance  ;  1am  ;  1st day of month  ;  accounting account

eg2 :  backup  ;  runs regular occurance  ;  11pm ; daily Monday to Friday  ;  dm account

Essentially you will have 2 programs. The phantom and a scheduling program run by the user.

When the phantom runs the designated program, it updates item 6 to avoid multiple instances of that program.

The scheduling program lays out what's to be run and when (and can display when last run) in a user friendly manner.

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Warwick

David, are you looking to have the controller run the jobs, or merely kick off other phantoms to run the jobs?

On Linux I use cron for starting phantom jobs on various schedules.

FDOM.CRON (first day of month paragraph)

FDOQ.CRON (first day of quarter paragraph)

NIGHTLY.CRON etc...

These UV paragraphs phantom off individual programs / other paragraphs.

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Lance Jahnke
UAPDI
Oracle AZ US
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In some cases, the controller would run the jobs, could also have a phantom run the job. For my initial testing, I am having the controller run all of the jobs.

I am writing a basic program to execute programs in phantom mode. Right now, the main program executes all of the individual programs at 1 am. Will be adding in features to specify what time to start each individual program at, what frequency (daily,monthly,etc), pause the individual program . If you can think of any other features that may be helpful, please let me know. Eventually I plan on releasing the program for anyone's use. If you need something like this now, let me know.

------------------------------
Dave Schwartz
Self Registered
FORT LAUDERDALE FL US
------------------------------

I am writing a basic program to execute programs in phantom mode. Right now, the main program executes all of the individual programs at 1 am. Will be adding in features to specify what time to start each individual program at, what frequency (daily,monthly,etc), pause the individual program . If you can think of any other features that may be helpful, please let me know. Eventually I plan on releasing the program for anyone's use. If you need something like this now, let me know.

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Dave Schwartz
Self Registered
FORT LAUDERDALE FL US
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My suggestion is that each job has a wrapper that you kick off.  This wrappers only function is to email you that the job is starting, and if possible on which pid if it can, and then also record that information in some JOBS file.  This will help you greatly when debugging if the jobs are working or have stopped for some reason

Hi Dave,

for flexibility, I suggest that it reads a file which has the details in it :

1. program to run.
2. one off or regular occurance
3. time to run
4. date / day of week or month to run
5. account (& user?) to run in 
6. time & date last run (to avoid running multiple times in the one period)

eg1 : end of month program  ;  runs regular occurance  ;  1am  ;  1st day of month  ;  accounting account

eg2 :  backup  ;  runs regular occurance  ;  11pm ; daily Monday to Friday  ;  dm account

Essentially you will have 2 programs. The phantom and a scheduling program run by the user.

When the phantom runs the designated program, it updates item 6 to avoid multiple instances of that program.

The scheduling program lays out what's to be run and when (and can display when last run) in a user friendly manner.

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Warwick

I am writing a basic program to execute programs in phantom mode. Right now, the main program executes all of the individual programs at 1 am. Will be adding in features to specify what time to start each individual program at, what frequency (daily,monthly,etc), pause the individual program . If you can think of any other features that may be helpful, please let me know. Eventually I plan on releasing the program for anyone's use. If you need something like this now, let me know.

------------------------------
Dave Schwartz
Self Registered
FORT LAUDERDALE FL US
------------------------------

I am writing a basic program to execute programs in phantom mode. Right now, the main program executes all of the individual programs at 1 am. Will be adding in features to specify what time to start each individual program at, what frequency (daily,monthly,etc), pause the individual program . If you can think of any other features that may be helpful, please let me know. Eventually I plan on releasing the program for anyone's use. If you need something like this now, let me know.

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Dave Schwartz
Self Registered
FORT LAUDERDALE FL US
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I have written a program like this previously.  My master scheduler program ran as a phantom and woke up every minute to kick off separate phantoms for each scheduled task.  The Master Scheduler used a master control record to indicate the following:

1. Is the Master Scheduler Active.
2. The port the Master Scheduler was running on (as a phantom).
3. Date last run.
4. Time last run.

This master program pulled the list of scheduled programs from a file.  The records in this file had fields related to that task.

1. Enabled flag
2. Single Run or regular schedule
3. Account
4. Program to run
5. Cron structured time to run
6. Port task is running on as a phantom
7. Phantom ID for the running task
8. Last Run Date
9. Last Run Time
10. Next Run Date
11. Next Run Time
12. Output of the task
13. Status message for the task like (failed, success, etc)

The reason I had a Next Run Date and Time is because when the task ran, I calculated the next date and time from a Cron program I created.  Storing the result meant I did not need to recalculate the Cron to see if it should be run or not.

Every time the Master Scheduler woke up, I checked the master control record to see if I should self-terminate if the Active flag was set to zero.  I had a separate utility which set that flag, kicked off the phantom, checked if it was still running in the background and other administrative tasks.

In some cases, the controller would run the jobs, could also have a phantom run the job. For my initial testing, I am having the controller run all of the jobs.

We have a similar scheduler running 24x7 to schedule various tasks as you've suggested. Reading the scheduled task list/parameters certainly is the way to go as others have suggested. You may or may not wish to include options such as a 'run as a phantom' switch and possibly a 'run on a business day' switch in addition to the other suggestions.

Maybe also have some way of cleanly stopping it and having it remain stopped may also be desirable with the use of a separate scheduler control.

Cheers