Load Contention in Mainframe Jobs

hermit_reloaded · New User Joined: 23 Apr 2007 Posts: 26 Location: India

Hi

Is there some method by which we can make a mainframe job wait for the load while the same load is being used by another job? Once the other job releases the load the first job can start execution. Is this possible in production environment my modifying the Procedure/JCL in some way?

hermit_reloaded · New User Joined: 23 Apr 2007 Posts: 26 Location: India

Is there some method by which we can make a mainframe job wait for the load while the same load is being used by another job? Once the other job releases the load the first job can start execution. Is this possible in production environment my modifying the Procedure/JCL in some way?

diwa_thilak · Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 11:36 am

Hi,

Can you rephrase your question ?

Did you mean to say, your job needs to wait for another job ?

If yes, you can make your job successor to the load job, so that your job will wait until the load job completes its operation.

Thanks,
Diwakar

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Nobody is Perfect. I am Nobody

munikumar · New User Joined: 18 Apr 2007 Posts: 24 Location: India

I believe you are using scheduler to schedule the jobs in your shop. We can define the jobs in such a way that depends mutually. I mean, you can schedule the triggered job of first job. So that second job will get triggered only when the first job completes.

expat · Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 12:16 pm

What do you mean by a load job ? A job loading a dataset, loading what ?

But if you have a schedule package, use that.

vmj · Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 12:39 pm

hermit_reloaded · New User Joined: 23 Apr 2007 Posts: 26 Location: India

I will paraphrase my concern

I have two jobs running in production. Job A is triggered by operator of the mainframe and is used to process Tapes and Job B is fully automated and is scheduled at a particular time of each day, it is used to process DASD files. Basically these two jobs are same the only difference is an additional REXX code in Job B, used to pick up files for the disks.

Load means the executables in the mainframe environment. Load is created when a Cobol source is compiled. Jcl using the various sources needs to be provided with a library containing all the loads.

Let me give an example of the problem being encountered
Lets say Job A is already running and is using the Load library. Then the Job B is initiated at its allotted time. Now when Job B will start processing it will encounter Load being held by Job A. So the Job B will not process the file.

We cannot create a different load for both jobs because both the jobs use the same resources.

What we need is the Job A to wait untill Job B have released the load library. This is what i am thinkin of. I havnt found anyway to do it. You can suggest any other soultion.

hermit_reloaded · New User Joined: 23 Apr 2007 Posts: 26 Location: India

What we need is the Job B to wait untill Job A have released the load library.

Sorry for the typo

William Thompson · Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 2:17 pm

hermit_reloaded · New User Joined: 23 Apr 2007 Posts: 26 Location: India

No
As we are not using a library as such. Or not even a PDS. The load is getting shared by both the Jobs. Therefore we cant give DISP=OLD.

dick scherrer · Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 7:14 pm

Hello,

If you are concerned about the same library being used to fetch programs for execution concurrently, do not be concerned. This is a normal method of processing. Program libraries are nearly always used by multiple concnrrent processes.

In your joblib, steplib or link listed entries, the program libraries are allocated with DISP=SHR - this is so that they may be used concnrrently.

If this is not your concern, please let us know.

hermit_reloaded · New User Joined: 23 Apr 2007 Posts: 26 Location: India

No this is not the concern

Both the jobs cannot run simultaneously. As both use the same resources and various files are updated during the processing of the job.

What i want is that is there any way for the job to go in a wait state until the previous job has finished processing.

dick scherrer · Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 7:32 pm

Hello,

Yes, just use DISP=OLD in one or all of the common resources DD statements.

If some of the common resources may be needed by other than these 2 jobs, allocate a "control" dataset that will never be read or deleted and specify DISP=OLD for that dataset only - when one of the jobs "has" it the other will wait. This is not a good solution as it ties up resources unnecessarily. It may also cause problems with time-outs or operator cancels.

Might it be possible to use the same JOBNAME for both jobs? If you name them the same, they will never execute at the same time - the system will not let the "second" job start until the "first" sompletes.

If your organization uses scheduling software, you should be able to control them via scheduling.

I've not yet seen a place that "locks" a load library to control jobs that should not run concurrently.

expat · Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 7:45 pm

dick scherrer · Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 10:00 pm

Yup, if they have a scheduling package and are willing to use it for this. . . .

I guess i'd rather see the duplicate job versus using some kind of resource wasting "locking" the-load-library mechanism.

Surely the scheduler is a better option.

hermit_reloaded · New User Joined: 23 Apr 2007 Posts: 26 Location: India

No we cannot schedule the jobs.

One job runs for the whole day. Whenever a tape needs to be processed by it an operator(human resource) loads the tape and issues a command that processes the file, this is the time when the jobs locks the load library. The other job is fully automated and runs at a particular time of the day. If a file is getting processed by the former job therefore locking the load library then the load library cannot be used by the latter job.

What i am thinkin is that we will create a file (dummy) in the job that runs the whole day. As long as the file is running we will keep it under mutually exclusive control and whenever the job finishes it releases control on this dummy file.

The next job keep on trying to open this dummy file in OLD mode and will go in a wait state until the previous job releases control..

Plz let me know if there are any discrepancies in this approach.

dick scherrer · Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 5:32 pm

Hello,

That approach was mentioned by

expat · Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 5:37 pm

I have never come across a situation like this, where the LOADLIB is locked.

Is it specified anywhere in the JCL with DISP=OLD .... if so, why not replace the DISP with SHR

Why not copy the required modules to another library and STEPLIB if this is the case that LOADLIB is locked.

Is this an MVS or TPF system ???