Using the HourGlass Control Center
The HourGlass Control Center (AGGCX) is an ISPF Dialog Manager application you can use to set HourGlass dates and times interactively, with no JCL changes required. This method is especially useful for installations in which access to JCL procedures may be limited, such as in a Production Control environment. The AGGCX application provides greater flexibility of use because changes to date and time specifications can be implemented dynamically. You may use wildcard characters in the qualification values in order to generalize date and time settings. Also use the AGGCX application to view customization settings, and to verify the operational status of the HourGlass service interfaces.
- Repository
- The HourGlass Repository is a VSAM KSDS used to permanently store information associated with control elements and control element groups. The HourGlass Control Center is used to manage the contents of the Repository.
- Control element
- A control element is an HourGlass setting
that allows you to temporarily alter the system date and time
for an application program.
Five types of control elements are supported:
- MVS Batch/Started Task (STC)
- TSO/ ISPF
- Job Schedule
- IMS Online/BMP
- DB2 Batch, SPUFI, and DDF
- Control element group
- It may be useful to define control element groups to help you organize control elements. You can create any number of groups, and a single control element can belong to one or more groups.
- Job schedule
- A job schedule is a type of control element that includes
one or more job names, and an HourGlass-altered date and time specification.
The order in which the job names are listed has no effect on processing.
Rather, HourGlass handles Job Schedule members in the order
in which the jobs execute on the system. For example, JOBA,
a member of Job Schedule SCHEDA, requests the time from the system.
HourGlass intercepts the time request and recognizes that JOBA
is a member of SCHEDA. Since JOBA is the first member
in the schedule to make a time request,
that first time request "triggers" SCHEDA.
The time requester in JOBA receives the HourGlass-altered
date and time value corresponding to the date and time specification in SCHEDA.
At the same time, the jobstep start date and time
for the triggering JOBA jobstep are saved in SCHEDA.
All subsequent time requests made by other members of SCHEDA
receive an HourGlass-altered date and time value
that is calculated relative to the date and time specification
in SCHEDA and the start date and time of the triggering jobstep.
The effect is that the HourGlass-altered date and time value,
specified in Job Schedule, appears to
roll
through the member jobs of the Job Schedule as they execute. - Job schedule control elements with DB2 time requests
- Job schedules have been enhanced so as to provide support for allowing
DB2 time requests to participate in job schedule control elements, and use the
HourGlass Start Date as a reference when calculating the HourGlass-altered
date and time value with reference to passing of the midnight boundary, as other
job schedule members do. If a DB2 control element contains a logical jobname,
and a matching job schedule is found, the DB2 time request participates in the job
schedule, and receives the HourGlass-altered date and time value associated with the
job schedule control element. Since the job schedule has an associated
Job Schedule Initiation Date,
the HourGlass date and time value returned to the DB2 time
requester is calculated in HourGlass
batch
processing mode. As with any batch process, the resulting date value is incremented as the underlying DB2 process executes across the midnight boundary. The date value associated with the job schedule continues to increment as long as the job schedule control element remains in the HourGlass Active Control Element Set (ACES) data area. The job schedule initiation date associated with the job schedule is reset, however, whenever HourGlass is stopped and restarted.