[Info-vax] Workload manager for VMS, Should it come with one? (or at least a Scheduler?)

[IanD]

I called the VMS batch system stone age because in the context of scheduling and workflow automation, it is. As a single entry job submitter it's ok but that wasn't the context of the post, it was specifically around a scheduler for VMS and/or a workload manager

Limitations of the batch system as a scheduler and/or workload manager off the top of my head are:

- No inter job relationships
- No ability to class multiple jobs together or to operate on them in a collection easily
- No management of job run-time or fine grained control
- Restartability is rudimentary
- No trending analysis possible or predictive operations possible
- No easily extractable statistics

Since the context was scheduling and workload management, the batch system lacks many of the features that I would consider a minimum to be able to provide high level automation (beyond simple alarming / abends)

Should VMS have a scheduler as a minimum? I think Yes. Windows, Unix have at least some type of scheduler functionality built in, but not VMS *sigh* and it seems we sold the farm in terms of Dec scheduler

Passing all the intelligence off to another scheduling system is to give away your ability to protect your environment and be the master of your own destiny IMO. Expecting the upstream scheduler to know all the intelligence and details of the target system to me is asking for trouble unless you have a perfect exchange of information happening all the time - good luck with that one.

It also goes against a recent Gartner report that picks intelligent apps (mostly at the source) as being the future trend, which to me equates to making VMS smarter in the scheduling department, but dumber.

I should be able to ask VMS 'Name all the jobs by user xyz due to trigger in the next 2 hours' without having to write painful DCL scripts. 'List the jobs in the preliminary class for today's bill run' or 'What is the percentage complete metric for customer abc and how long before it completes'

With VMS's batch system as it stands this type of business related information would be rather difficult to obtain and more than painful to script up. 
Is it really to much to expect this as a minimum functionality from our VMS system? How else will VMS add value to businesses if we are not going to provide an OS and offerings that answer real business world wants?

So the answer is to then leave the VMS batch system alone, not bother with a scheduler and roll over and play dead to other schedulers / workload systems? /Sarcasm mode ON