1 Introduction to Oracle Enterprise Scheduler

This chapter provides a general introduction to Oracle Enterprise Scheduler and its administration tasks. With Oracle Enterprise Scheduler, you can define, schedule and run jobs, or units of work done on an application's behalf.

Oracle Enterprise Scheduler is installed with a product that embeds it to provides scheduling services. You typically won't have to install Oracle Enterprise Scheduler.

This chapter includes the following topics:

Introduction to Administering Oracle Enterprise Scheduler
Basic Tasks for Configuring and Managing Oracle Enterprise Scheduler

1.1 Introduction to Administering Oracle Enterprise Scheduler

With Oracle Enterprise Scheduler, you can define, schedule and run jobs. A job is a unit of work done on an application's behalf. For example, you might define a job that runs a particular PL/SQL function or command-line process. You can define a job that executes Java code. Those job types are included with Oracle Enterprise Scheduler:

Java job type for executing Java code.
Process job type for executing a command-line command.
PL/SQL job type for executing functions in Oracle's extension language for SQL.

When you create jobs from these types you associate metadata as a job definition. Through this context-specific metadata, the job does meaningful work on the application's behalf. That metadata can include parameter values the user specifies and values for properties defined by Oracle Enterprise Scheduler. By defining schedules, you can have jobs run when you want them to (such as at off-peak times). You can also specify constraints that prevent jobs from running when you don't want them to. By creating job sets, you can group multiple jobs into batches whose jobs run either simultaneously or in a sequence.

Oracle Enterprise Scheduler provides tools with which you can monitor the system. For example, you might want to get a snapshot of current and pending job requests, or see how the system is performing under load. You can also get logs and the status of service components.

You can perform each of these tasks, from submitting jobs to monitoring the system, with the Scheduling Services pages of Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control Console. For a more detailed list of tasks, see Section 1.2, "Basic Tasks for Configuring and Managing Oracle Enterprise Scheduler".

1.2 Basic Tasks for Configuring and Managing Oracle Enterprise Scheduler

You administer Oracle Enterprise Scheduler with the Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control Console (Fusion Middleware Control). There, the Scheduling Service home page provides an overview of scheduler component status, top running and completed scheduled job requests, as well as a performance summary of scheduled job requests. Other Scheduling Service pages provide a user interface for performing the tasks described in this section (and many others).

The following provides a summary of steps you might take to get set up use the service:

1.2.1 Set Up and Configuration

Create a domain and configure a cluster. Oracle Enterprise Scheduler is installed by a product that includes it as a service to manage schedules. However, it's possible that the embedding product didn't configure domains that support Oracle Enterprise Scheduler for deploying. See Section 3.2.
Configure a request processor and request dispatcher. A job request processor is bound to a particular Oracle Enterprise Scheduler server, and is responsible for allocating threads for job requests. A job request dispatcher polls for job requests. See Section 3.4.
Start the instance. See Section 3.5.

1.2.2 Creating Jobs to Run

Create job definitions. You define and manage job definitions that specify values specific to the request at hand. See Section 5.2.1.
Create schedules. You can define a schedule for managing the execution of job requests, work assignments, work shifts and purge policies. You can also create schedules on the fly when creating a request. See Section 4.2.1.2, Section 4.2.3 and Section 5.3.3.
Create and submit job requests. A job request pulls together a job definition with a schedule on which the job will run. See Section 4.2.1.
Create a purge policy. Purge policies allow you to define the conditions for retaining and purging job requests associated with a request processor. See Section 4.3.

1.2.3 Bundling Jobs and Refining Their Work

Create job sets. With job sets, you can bundle jobs into groups in which the jobs run at the same time or in a sequence. See Section 5.2.2.
Define restrictions with incompatibilities. Incompatibilities specify which jobs shouldn't run at the same time, along with the conditions under which they are incompatible. See Section 5.2.3.
Define restrictions with work assignments. Work assignments define rules under which jobs can be processed, along with windows of time in which they can run. See Section 5.3.1.

1.2.4 Monitoring the System

Monitor the system. You can monitor job requests, system performance, and system status. You can also get logs for job requests and the system. See Chapter 6, "Monitoring Oracle Enterprise Scheduler".