Scheduled tasks never run on time

[Another DB2 UDB DBA]

DB2 UDB ESE is running at V8.1 FP5 on 32-bit Solaris 7, single
partition. The tools catalog database is on the same instance as
everything else.

I have not really embraced the DB2 Task Center because I can't get it
to run a task anywhere close to the specified start time. In fact, any
task I schedule to run daily always starts about 100 minutes late. This
delay has been consistent for months, as opposed to a delay that grows
over time. When I edit the task and look at the scheduled start time,
it appears correct. The Journal confirms how late each job run is.

Has anyone experienced this type of behavior? I have very little to go
on so far, so I don't think I'll get very far opening a PMR at this
point. Scouring the APAR list has revealed nothing. My Unix admins are
also less than helpful, chiding me for using a flaky job scheduler
instead of using Unix's crude but effective cron utility.

If you're not encountering this exact behavior, but are still less than
satisfied with Task Center, please reply anyway, and maybe we'll come
up with something together.

[Mark A]

"Another DB2 UDB DBA" <sa*****@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:11*********************@z14g2000cwz.googlegro ups.com...

DB2 UDB ESE is running at V8.1 FP5 on 32-bit Solaris 7, single
partition. The tools catalog database is on the same instance as
everything else.

I have not really embraced the DB2 Task Center because I can't get it
to run a task anywhere close to the specified start time. In fact, any
task I schedule to run daily always starts about 100 minutes late. This
delay has been consistent for months, as opposed to a delay that grows
over time. When I edit the task and look at the scheduled start time,
it appears correct. The Journal confirms how late each job run is.

Has anyone experienced this type of behavior? I have very little to go
on so far, so I don't think I'll get very far opening a PMR at this
point. Scouring the APAR list has revealed nothing. My Unix admins are
also less than helpful, chiding me for using a flaky job scheduler
instead of using Unix's crude but effective cron utility.

If you're not encountering this exact behavior, but are still less than
satisfied with Task Center, please reply anyway, and maybe we'll come
up with something together.

You should definitely open a PMR if you have a support contract. They will
tell you what information they need from you and how to get that
information.

Or just schedule everything 100 minutes early.

Cron is definitely crude. For example it cannot schedule a job to run the
first Sunday of the month (although I am not sure about the DB2 Task
Center).

[Jonathan Leffler]

Mark A wrote:

Cron is definitely crude. For example it cannot schedule a job to run the
first Sunday of the month (although I am not sure about the DB2 Task
Center).

Cron can do it - quite easily:

12 0 1-7 * 0 /my/command
The fifth column is the day of the week - 0 is Sunday. The third
column is the day of the month; the first Sunday always falls between
the 1st and the 7th of the month.

See: http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/toc.htm
Type crontab in the search field and look at the specification.

--
Jonathan Leffler #include <disclaimer.h>
Email: jl******@earthlink.net, jl******@us.ibm.com
Guardian of DBD::Informix v2003.04 -- http://dbi.perl.org/

[Mark A]

> > Cron is definitely crude. For example it cannot schedule a job to run
the

first Sunday of the month (although I am not sure about the DB2 Task
Center).

Cron can do it - quite easily:

12 0 1-7 * 0 /my/command
The fifth column is the day of the week - 0 is Sunday. The third
column is the day of the month; the first Sunday always falls between
the 1st and the 7th of the month.

See: http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/toc.htm
Type crontab in the search field and look at the specification.

--
Jonathan Leffler #include <disclaimer.h>

According to the site you referenced:

"Finally, if either the month or day of month is specified as an element or
list, and the day of week is also specified as an element or list, then any
day matching either the month and day of month, or the day of week, shall be
matched."

Doesn't this mean that your example will run on the first 7 days of the
month (1-7), and also run on any Sunday (0) regardless of the day of the
month?

[Wolfgang Riedel]

Jonathan Leffler wrote:

Mark A wrote:

Cron is definitely crude. For example it cannot schedule a job to run the
first Sunday of the month (although I am not sure about the DB2 Task
Center).

Cron can do it - quite easily:

12 0 1-7 * 0 /my/command

The fifth column is the day of the week - 0 is Sunday. The third
column is the day of the month; the first Sunday always falls between
the 1st and the 7th of the month.

See: http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/toc.htm
Type crontab in the search field and look at the specification.

--
Jonathan Leffler #include <disclaimer.h>
Email: jl******@earthlink.net, jl******@us.ibm.com
Guardian of DBD::Informix v2003.04 -- http://dbi.perl.org/

(ranges are OR'd in crontab),
but maybe:

12 0 * * 0 if [ `date +\%d` -lt 8 ]; then /my/command; fi
(escape '%', as it's special in crontab).

Wolfgang

[Jonathan Leffler]

Mark A wrote:

Cron is definitely crude. For example it cannot schedule a job
to run the first Sunday of the month (although I am not sure
about the DB2 Task Center).
Cron can do it - quite easily:

12 0 1-7 * 0 /my/command
The fifth column is the day of the week - 0 is Sunday. The third
column is the day of the month; the first Sunday always falls between
the 1st and the 7th of the month.

See: http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/toc.htm
Type crontab in the search field and look at the specification.

--
Jonathan Leffler #include <disclaimer.h>

According to the site you referenced:

"Finally, if either the month or day of month is specified as an element or
list, and the day of week is also specified as an element or list, then any
day matching either the month and day of month, or the day of week, shall be
matched."

Didn't reread that bit, and forgot that oddit.
Doesn't this mean that your example will run on the first 7 days of the
month (1-7), and also run on any Sunday (0) regardless of the day of the
month?

Yes. You can still do, just not so compactly. I started off with the
7 line version, then remembered ranges and saw that in the man page.
So, moderately easily:

12 0 1 * 0 /my/command
12 0 2 * 0 /my/command
12 0 3 * 0 /my/command
....
12 0 7 * 0 /my/command

Sorry for the mis-steer. There had to be a reason why I did it the
long-winded way, but I'd forgotten the gotcha (so I was thoroughly
gotch-me'd).

--
Jonathan Leffler #include <disclaimer.h>
Email: jl******@earthlink.net, jl******@us.ibm.com
Guardian of DBD::Informix v2003.04 -- http://dbi.perl.org/

[Mark A]

"Jonathan Leffler" <jl******@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:2k****************@newsread1.news.pas.earthli nk.net...

Yes. You can still do, just not so compactly. I started off with the
7 line version, then remembered ranges and saw that in the man page.
So, moderately easily:

12 0 1 * 0 /my/command
12 0 2 * 0 /my/command
12 0 3 * 0 /my/command
...
12 0 7 * 0 /my/command
12 0 1-7 * 0 /my/command
Sorry for the mis-steer. There had to be a reason why I did it the
long-winded way, but I'd forgotten the gotcha (so I was thoroughly
gotch-me'd).

--
Jonathan Leffler #include <disclaimer.h>

I believe that your latest attempt runs the first seven days of the month
AND runs on Sundays (in fact, I think it will kick off 7 jobs on Sunday at
the same time). If I am wrong, some please correct me.

The original request was to run on the first Sunday of each month (or run
once a month but always on Sunday).

[Jonathan Leffler]

Mark A wrote:

"Jonathan Leffler" <jl******@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:2k****************@newsread1.news.pas.earthli nk.net...

Yes. You can still do, just not so compactly. I started off with the
7 line version, then remembered ranges and saw that in the man page.
So, moderately easily:

12 0 1 * 0 /my/command
12 0 2 * 0 /my/command
12 0 3 * 0 /my/command
...
12 0 7 * 0 /my/command

12 0 1-7 * 0 /my/command

Sorry for the mis-steer. There had to be a reason why I did it the
long-winded way, but I'd forgotten the gotcha (so I was thoroughly
gotch-me'd).

--
Jonathan Leffler #include <disclaimer.h>

I believe that your latest attempt runs the first seven days of the month
AND runs on Sundays (in fact, I think it will kick off 7 jobs on Sunday at
the same time). If I am wrong, some please correct me.

The original request was to run on the first Sunday of each month (or run
once a month but always on Sunday).

Maybe - OK, I give in.

--
Jonathan Leffler #include <disclaimer.h>
Email: jl******@earthlink.net, jl******@us.ibm.com
Guardian of DBD::Informix v2003.04 -- http://dbi.perl.org/

[Another DB2 UDB DBA]

I finally opened a PMR, and it appears that the problem goes away in V8
FP6a and newer. For what it's worth, I was able to reproduce the
problem on a couple different installations of V8 FP5, so anyone else
experiencing problems with scheduled jobs at FP5 should consider
upgrading.