I agree with Steven about the concerns about using an escalation.
I encourage people to avoid using escalations because they can cause significant performance problems when scheduled incorrectly.
Custom crontasks are slightly better because you have more control over what happens when an error occurs.
It should be noted that a custom crontask will still encounter issues if the crontask manager has problems/stops initiating crontasks.
The debate about monitoring in-Maximo or outside will go on for a long term.
Like Steven I see the necessity for external monitoring tools that can contact the JVM and check the status;
At Vetasi we use a mix of external and internal, the internal tools, not using crontasks, write key information to the logs on a regular basis. Writing to the logs means that the external tool can generate alerts and so system administrators have visibility of the issues.
One of the dangers of relying on a purely external monitoring system, using things like REST, is that the monitoring system loses access if the JVM "goes rogue" and stops responding to external requests.
I have seen that before on a number of systems and having an internal component gathering info can be very useful
If you are interested in using custom crontasks instead of escalations then you may want to read my blog article here where I provide sample code.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/escalation-alternative-sample-crontask-shows-mboset-mark-robbins/that was part of my "escalations mini-series #escalationMiniSeries" where I discuss escalations in detail.
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Mark Robbins
Support Lead/Technical Design Authority / IBM Champion 2017 & 2018 & 2019 & 2020 & 2021
Vetasi Limited
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/maximo-support-advice-from-non-ibm-engineer-article-mark-robbins/------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: Mon February 07, 2022 09:53 PM
From: KKunnuthara
Subject: Crontask instances failing to run
@Steven Shull thanks very much for sharing your thoughts there.
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KKunnuthara
Original Message:
Sent: Mon February 07, 2022 08:29 AM
From: Steven Shull
Subject: Crontask instances failing to run
I'm a strong believer of not utilizing Maximo to monitor itself. In this scenario you're looking at escalations/cron tasks that show a lastrun>lastend, but what if one of those cron tasks is your escalation? In that scenario you are no longer monitoring your cron tasks.
The other reason why I don't like Maximo for this is this type of monitoring needs more intelligence. While a cron task is running, it should have a lastrun>lastend. You're looking for when it's in this state for a period longer than you expect. But a PM WOGEN may take 2 hours during a normal execution and an email listener should take 1 minute. So I would need to worry after maybe 2.5 hours for PM WOGEN and after 5 minutes for email listener.
What I've done in the past is make REST API calls into Maximo from our monitoring system looking for records that exceed the time I expect for that type of cron task. I only monitor those I deem most critical (IE email listener, PM WOGEN, etc.) so that I can define appropriate limits for those cron tasks based on historical data. And I use a start center result portlet to show me all so that those less critical ones are still acted on.
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Steven Shull
Original Message:
Sent: Sun February 06, 2022 06:43 PM
From: KKunnuthara
Subject: Crontask instances failing to run
Hi all,
I guess this has been an age old problem, but really wanted to know your thoughts on this.
Some of the crontask instances, for example, REPORTSCHEDULE instances or AsyncImmediateJobCron instances etc. have been found to get stuck with LASTRUN greater than LASTEND time.
What solutions could we put in place to monitor this issue and raise a notification?
I was thinking of an escalation that would run a query on TASKSCHEUDLER table and then generate a notification.
Your thoughts would be appreciated.
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KKunnuthara
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