Integrate Scheduler (Control-M, ESP) and Logging with Spring Batch

[denschu]

Hello,

currently, I am working on two big tasks and would be very happy about it, when you could help.

Situation:
We have a Scheduler on the Mainframe (z/OS: Control-M, ESP) and the Spring batch jobs are running on a AIX machine within a ApplicationServer (WAS) and Spring Batch Admin.

1. Scheduler-Integration
I think there are different ways, for example calling a webservice with curl, message-queues, and so on. Are there any Best Practices how to trigger the jobs on the AIX-machine from the host? But my main question ist: How do you control the status of the job with the scheduler? Polling against the Batch-Database?

2. Logging
How do you transport the logfiles to the Mainframe? Normally in Spring Batch the log4j-Framework is used. But it only logs to the AIX-Filesystem. Are there any possibilities to transport the log-output directly to the Host (Beta93/Beta92)? Maybe with log4j-Appenders over MQ?

Many thanks
Dennis

[Dave Syer]

We have a Scheduler on the Mainframe (z/OS: Control-M, ESP) and the Spring batch jobs are running on a AIX machine within a ApplicationServer (WAS) and Spring Batch Admin.

This is quite a common set up.

Are there any Best Practices how to trigger the jobs on the AIX-machine from the host?

I've seen people do this with shell, perl, Java, groovy (you name it). Whatever works best for you.

How do you control the status of the job with the scheduler? Polling against the Batch-Database?

Yes, usually. You can use Spring Batch Admin to do that with a bit of screen scraping (in version 1.1 there is also JSON support so it will be easier to read from a script). You can also write a tiny Java client that uses the JobExplorer.

Maybe with log4j-Appenders over MQ?

Log4J (or other) appenders are the most common solution to this problem. Usually there are some business or environment specific log messages that you control in your application or integration layer, so you don't have to send the *whole* logger output over the wire.

I am interested in solutions in this space though, as framework features, so if you find a nice way to do it let us know.

[denschu]

Does anybody have experience with the integration of a Host Scheduler (Control-M, ESP) and Spring Batch (runs inside a Spring Batch Admin.war on WebSphere) using Stonebranch / Universal Command?

Currently we are evaluating the best possible solution in this topic. So I would be very happy to get some infos about this topic.

Best Regards...
Dennis