NetBatch Manual

Scheduler Planning, Configuration, and

Management

NetBatch Manual—522460-004

3-6

Task 3. Establish Class and Executor Configurations

Determine the class and executor configurations of each scheduler.

Establishing Class Configurations

Classes function primarily as CPU resource managers. Through their INITIATION

attributes, you can control the flow of jobs to executors and therefore to those

executors’ CPUs. Thus, classes help you balance job workload across all CPUs in your

system.

Classes are most effective as CPU resource managers when they cater to jobs with

similar CPU requirements. Therefore, plan at least one class for use specifically by

CPU-bound jobs, and plan other classes for I/O-bound jobs.

To further enhance the effectiveness of classes as CPU resource managers, have

classes that cater for jobs with similar processing times. For example, consider

planning separate classes for long and short jobs.

You also can use classes to group jobs that have a common function or purpose. For

example, you could plan a class for payroll jobs, another for high-priority jobs, and one

for jobs from a particular department. However, using classes in this way can result in

a class whose jobs have considerably different CPU-resource requirements and

processing times. Jobs from such a class make CPU load balancing difficult, so use

classes to group jobs by function or purpose only after establishing what effect the jobs

will have on CPU-management activities.

Class Numbers

The NetBatch product does not limit the number of classes you can set up for each

scheduler. As the number of classes increases, however, so does the complexity of

managing them.

You can determine a practical limit for class numbers by multiplying the number of

executors in a scheduler by eight. (Eight is the maximum number of classes you can

assign to an executor.) For example, a scheduler with four executors could have 32

classes (eight classes multiplied by four executors).

Class-Naming Conventions

Consider naming conventions when planning your schedulers’ classes. Some

commands let you specify multiple classes with wild-card characters, so use names

you can mask easily with those characters.

Establishing Executor Configuration

The information you use to plan a scheduler’s classes also helps you plan the

executors for that scheduler. The information helps you plan the executors because

executors perform a similar function to classes (controlling CPU workload).