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SPANEX

Basic SPANEX Concepts

SPANEX is a product that provides many facilities in many different areas of system operation.  Major functions include an automatic Job Scheduling system, based upon dependent job control within the various jobs of a suite or application system, together with comprehensive calendar-based facilities; a sophisticated Job Restart system providing intelligent restart without manual intervention for the majority of job failures; a means of implementing authorized program functions with all authorization control performed by SPANEX; notification to the system operator of any failures in the job and action based upon the failure that occurred; and many more functions.

SPANEX functions as a logical extension of the Operating System Initiator, and provides many additional services to the user program.  As a monitor or "front-end" processor, SPANEX detects and intercepts any failure of a user program and takes the appropriate action as specified by parameter.  By this technique, SPANEX provides a simple and consistent set of error-reporting mechanisms, and avoids the necessity for wide-ranging and complicated messages and error codes within user programs.

The SPANEX Job Restart system implements the concept of building restart logic into each user Job at the design stage.  The logic of the restart of each Job is defined to SPANEX such that a failed Job need only be re-submitted for execution, and recovery programs will be automatically run as necessary, depending upon the point of failure, before SPANEX retries the execution of the Jobstep where the error occurred.  This principle removes all the problem analysis load from operations staff and passes responsibility for defining recovery logic to the applications development groups.  The SPANEX technique also provides a standardized restart/recovery implementation that can be used throughout an installation, removing any need for customized restart or control systems.

The SPANEX Job Scheduling and Networking facilities extend this restart logic into the area of inter-job dependencies.  A SPANEX Job Network can support any complexity of job relationships, with each Job being automatically scheduled by SPANEX as its pre-requisite jobs or events complete successfully.  Job suites can be tailored by simple SPANEX utility commands so that different combinations of jobs can be run on different occasions with no difficulty.  Using the SPANEX calendar facilities, completely automatic configuration of jobs can be achieved, supporting any number of job combinations, and an unlimited number of calendars.  Various different scheduling control implementations are provided for within the SPANEX system.  Job Network control can be performed by an individual user group, each group responsible for its own job suites; or can be the responsibility of an individual time-sharing user via the SPANEX terminal interface; or a specialized group of scheduling staff may be in charge of the scheduling of all job suites or networks in the installation.  SPANEX facilities prevent unauthorized execution of SPANEX utility commands.  SPANEX also provides an application program that allows user programs to make and implement scheduling decisions.

As an execution monitor, SPANEX provides many further facilities and services to the user program and to the installation.  These facilities include secure control of the Operating System Authorised Program Facility, printing of Input/Output and Paging statistics, a "Step Cancel" facility, TSO options, secure control of non-swapability for MVS, and many other features.

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Standard SPANEX features

The following is a list of SPANEX features, not necessarily in any order of importance.

• Automatic Suite/Job/Step Restart Facility

• Automatic Job Scheduling and Networking (Dependent Job Control)

• Automatic Calendar processing, to control job selection based on date or "day-type"

• Job Scheduling and Network Operations from Batch, Time-Sharing terminal, MCS operator console or dedicated SPANEX terminal

• support of different techniques for the input of jobs to the system - techniques may vary between Job Networks

• great flexibility in defining variable combinations of jobs required for each execution of an application system

• temporary or one-off changes can be made to production JCL without affecting production JCL libraries

• full-screen real-time display of Job Network status

• full-screen display of jobs selected by Calendar processing for and date in the future or past

• run-time statistics for individual jobs and for application systems

• user-modifiable 3270 Program Function Key support and online HELP data

• wallchart produced showing job inter-relationships

• HALT and PROCEED commands allow Job Network execution to be interrupted at any point, and resumed when required

• up to eight arbitrary external events which may be defined for each job, to control scheduling according to any user-chosen factors

• ability to "catalogue" frequently-used sets of SPANEX commands and invoke with a single command

• Password protection of sensitive Network control commands

• many optional exit routines to permit Network execution to be monitored or modified and to provide Network security

• all abnormal conditions automatically notified to the operator

• operator acknowledgement of failures can be ensured

• user program exception processing specified by parameter

• multiple criteria for determining the successful or unsuccessful completion of application and utility programs

• batch environment provided for user programs under TSO

• minimal JCL changes or parameter requirements

• extends user EXEC statement "PARM" field to 255 bytes (by use of optional extra DD statement)

• all actions fully documented via optional "Message Log"

• Global Log for a Job Network enables recording of all significant events in the execution of a Job suite with searching by SPANEX command

• "TASKLIB" facility allows TSO "Dynamic STEPLIB"

• "SPANLIB" facility allows easy testing of new SPANEX versions

• secure authorization control for selected programs, batch or TSO

• secure non-swapability control for MVS without PPT updates

• optional MCS console display for information messages

• MCS console for SPANEX messages selectable via Route Code specification

• optional STOP and MODIFY command processing by SPANEX

• optional operator authorization of jobstep execution

• operator can CANCEL with DUMP, even if no Dump DD statement

• "Span Product" facility enhances other Span products and provides facilities for user programs

• aids for testing of TSO Command Processors

• "NOTIFY" option informs TSO users of batch job results (and status of Job Network)

• low overhead - CPU time used printed on "Message LOG" dataset using Span Software's SPSMFINF product (MVS only)

• full paging and EXCP statistics from SPSMFINF (MVS only)

• optional installation exit routine allows tailoring

• macros provided to aid user program development
  
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