Implementing job interception
The high-level steps required to implement job interception.
Job interception is a feature of both the BC-XBP 2.0 and BC-XBP 3.0 interfaces. It enables IBM Workload Scheduler to have a very sophisticated control over the jobs launched by SAP users from the SAP graphical interface.
The job interception mechanism becomes active when the SAP job scheduler is about to start an
SAP job (that is, when the
start
conditions of an SAP job are fulfilled). It checks the job
parameters (job name
, creator
, client
) against
the entries in the SAP table
TBCICPT1
, and when the job parameters match the criteria, the SAP job is set back to the
scheduled
status and is marked with a special flag, denoting that the job has been
intercepted. The criteria defined in the criteria table establishes which job are intercepted.
If IBM Workload Scheduler has been set up to handle job interception, it periodically runs its own job to retrieve a list of intercepted jobs and reschedules them to be relaunched. This job can be referred to as the interception collector job.
Job interception with the BC-XBP 2.0 interface is based on the single extended agent workstation, whereas with the BC-XBP 3.0 interface, job interception is based on the currently active job interception criteria profile.
- Jobs launched by IBM Workload Scheduler, or by any other external scheduler using the BC-XBP interface, can be intercepted provided the job_interceptable option in the common options file is set to ON, and the -flag enable_job_interceptable keyword is included in the job definition.
- Ensure that the job interception and job throttling features are not running at the same time. The interception collector jobs fail if a job throttler instance is running. To stop the job throttler, refer to Step 5. Starting and stopping the job throttling feature.
The following are the high-level steps required to implement job interception for both the BC-XBP 2.0 and 3.0 interfaces.
Job interception and the BC-XBP 2.0 interface
- Install the BC-XBP 2.0 interface. Refer to SAP Note 604496 to know if your SAP system already has the BC-XBP 2.0 interface, or which SAP support package you need to install to enable it.
- Define an IBM Workload Scheduler job to periodically collect the intercepted SAP jobs.
- Specify interception criteria in the SAP system.
- Specify interception criteria in IBM Workload Scheduler from the Monitor Workstations portlet on the Dynamic Workload Console. The criteria is set at workstation level.
- Activate the job interception feature of the BC-XBP 2.0 interface.
Job interception and the BC-XBP 3.0 interface
- Verify if the BC-XBP 3.0 interface is already installed on the SAP system.
- Define an IBM Workload Scheduler job to periodically collect the intercepted SAP jobs.
- Specify interception criteria in the SAP system.
- Specify interception criteria in IBM Workload Scheduler from the Manage SAP Criteria Profiles portlet on the Dynamic Workload Console.
- Activate the job interception feature of the BC-XBP 3.0 interface.