Mainframe, MVS and zOS Discussion

Hi,

What is the difference between CA-7 and CA-11. I've seen CA11RMS being coded seprately in jobs but don't see something like CA711RMS? But all these jobs are scheduled using CA-7 so don't do the same things?

Regards,

CA-7 is a job scheduler. It allows jobs to be started based on time of day / week / month, completion (or failure) of another job, or even creation of a particular data set. CA-11 is a job restart facility. It can be linked to CA-7 when both are present at a site, but CA-11 is used to set the environment for a job to execute after a previous failure (uncatalog / delete any GDG generations or sequential data sets created by the job, for example) while CA-7 actually controls the job restart.

In continuation with what Robert has said, you could also have look at these two existing threads. They are 'stickies' in this Forum:

What is CA7?

CA-7 is a Production control system. It’s an online, real-time, interactive system which Automatically controls, schedules jobs based on the Date and Time, job dependencies and Available resources.

CA-7 is our automated job scheduler. Jobs can be scheduled to run and manipulate in a variety of ways . Two common terms that have caused confusion are “job triggering” and “job dependency”. A job dependency is a job that must complete before the job waiting in the queue can run. Upon successful completion of the preceding job, the job waiting in the queue will be submitted. However, if the dependent job does not complete successfully, the job dependency will not be posted. Also, the terms “force complete” and “cancel” both mean to remove a job from the CA-7 queue. But the results are completely different.

A job is forced complete when it returns an acceptable condition code, or when it does not require an immediate remedy, and the job stream can continue. Forcing a job complete tells CA-7 to treat the job as having completed successfully, and to continue processing. Any dependencies of this job on other jobs will be posted, and any job triggering by this job will be done. Canceling a job from the queue does just the opposite. The job will be removed from the CA-7 queue, but no job triggering will be done, and any dependencies of this job on others will not be posted. This command is used to stop a job stream.

In other words - CA-7 is Scheduling Software, which distribute or centralize job submission, management and monitoring as you choose and simplify job management by automating as much as possible and provides a simple-to-use interface to manage your environment. CA-7 is sold by CA Technologies.

It is commonly used by banks and other large enterprises with IBM mainframe IT computing platforms. In 1987, Computer Associates took ownership of the product when it acquired its archival, UCCEL Corporation. CA subsequently renamed it from UCC-7 to CA-7.

What is CA-11?

CA-11 is an Automated Rerun and Tracking System. It can be used as an effective management tool in a production environment and as an invaluable tool in a test environment. The objective of CA-11 is to improve resource use and productivity of the Data Center. CA-11 is designed to perform as a Run Handler, and as a Job Tracking System or a combination of both.

There are two types of job execution:

1. Production Run – which is the initial execution of a job.
2. Rerun – which is considered to be an extension or continuation of a production run.

The Run Handler provides the means for automatically handling all MVS catalog maintenance, dataset maintenance, and GDG bias adjustments for job reruns and restarts. It handles step restarts as easily as complete job reruns. The use of step restarts by CA-11, as opposed to complete reruns, and the reduction of reruns greatly improves the productivity of the data center.

Thanku Robert and Anuj. This is helpful to me.

Glad that we had been helpful!