JobQGenie Now Protects Job Queue Contents Through IPLs

January 26, 2010 Alex Woodie

Shield Advanced Solutions this month issued a major new release of JobQGenie, its i/OS utility that ensures the contents of job queues can be recovered following an unexpected outage by enabling job queues to be replicated through standard high availability (HA) software. With version 5.1, Shield has completely rewritten the software, and bolstered the product with new features and capabilities.

JobQGenie was created to address a functionality gap that exists in all i/OS HA products, according to Chris Hird, president of the Toronto, Canada, software vendor. While the HA products are good at replicating data and objects and managing failovers, they don’t provide a mechanism for replicating the contents of a job queue, he says. Because of that omission, customers have no way of knowing what jobs were in the queue at the time of an unexpected outage.

It’s a small gap, to be sure. When a major disaster hits, losing the contents of System i job queue is probably not the biggest concern. But it’s a gap, nonetheless, and with JobQGenie, Shield has provided a solution for those demanding i/OS shops, like office supply retailer Staples, that require the maximum uptime.

With JobQGenie version 5.1, Shield has completely rewritten the product, and added several more capabilities that widen the product’s scope and make it easier to accomplish standard tasks.

For starters, JobQGenie now protects job queue contents through IPLs. In previous releases, the product would be unable to do anything for a job that was sitting on a job queue when the System i server was restarted. With version 5.1, Shield can now properly manage job queue contents through the course of a rebuild process.

The software now collects more information about jobs in the job queue to allow for better control of jobs that need to be resubmitted for execution. This includes the *CURLIB parameter, LOGCLP, and the job’s priority in the queue, Shield says.

The resubmission of jobs can be automated in several ways. For instance, jobs that meet pre-defined criteria can be automatically resubmitted for execution by the software. The software also assures jobs that meet multiple criteria will only run once, Shield says.

Lastly, Shield has improved the error reporting function of JobQGenie by including more information in error messages. The software also now includes a filter for error messages, thereby reducing the administrator’s workload.

“This is a new code base for the JobQGenie product,” states Hird in a press release. “Many of the enhancements have been made to allow the product to run in very volatile environments, while still maintaining its low CPU and memory requirement.” According to Shield, the software can process 12,000 jobs per hour, with less than a 1 percent hit on CPU consumption.