Trigger mainframe job , when file placed in unix folder

Nandhinee · New User Joined: 09 Apr 2020 Posts: 1 Location: India

Hi,

We have a process which picks up the file from Unix server and process it. So from mainframe end we scheduled our OPC to run every 30 mins to check if there are any requests to be processed.
But Now users want it to be processed as and when the file was placed in the folder in unix server.

The problem is there is no REST API connection between source(tool is residing in linux server) and mainframe.

So want to know , Is there any option available to monitor the file existence in Unix folder and trigger mainframe job.

Thanks

Joerg.Findeisen · Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2020 12:55 pm

When the file arrives at the UNIX server why not starting a job on Mainframe via FTP/JES interface or even putting a trigger DSN on the Host as post-processing step on UNIX side? The trigger can be used to start the processing via OPC. Together with the 30 mins interval this should avoid missing trigger events due to connectivity loss.

David Robinson · Active User Joined: 21 Dec 2011 Posts: 199 Location: UK

It's a few years since I've worked with TWS, but I have used something that I seem to recall was a freeware download from IBM. Essentially you schedule a job to run through TWS on the Unix server. You specify a number of parameters including the file name, check frequency and a timeout period.

It will then loop round checking to see if the file is there every nn seconds. When it is, the job will complete and your schedule can continue. If it has not arrived after the time-out period, the job will fail.

Not ideal, as you need to know roughly when the file will arrive, and that it definitely will arrive at some point, so it's not suitable for ad-hoc situations.