Concepts

The following sections describe the main concepts of the Ianus architecture.

Job

The Job is the set of task to be performed by each Ianus run. A job is composed by one or more Tasks and corresponds to a single XML script.

The job is identified by a user defined name. The result of the job is a status code affected by the result of the tasks executed by the job.

By default, a job executes all the tasks assigned, independently of their result. Optionally a job may be instructed to stop at the first failing task.

Task

Task is the smallest unit of work for Ianus. The task is a specific action on one or more data entities, namely:

• RDBMS table comparison
• RDBMS stored procedure comparison
• Data file comparison
• RDBMS table copy
• File copy
• Log messages
• JCL submission
• User code and PowerShell execution
• Run SQL commands
• Import/export RDBMS data from/to Excel files

A task is identified by a user defined name. The result of the task is a status code, affecting the job status code.

It is also possible for users to code their own custom task.

Environment

The Environment is the set of definitions and configuration parameters used by Ianus when executing a Job.

An environment is an XML file containing:

• Datasources definitions
• Configuration parameters

Environments are totally decoupled from Job scripts, allowing to execute the same job in different environments.

Datasources

A datasource is a generalized resource describing a generic data repository. There are three types of data sources:

Type	Description
Databases	Relational databases such as SQL Server, DB2, Oracle, etc.
Repositories	Local or remote file repositories
Regions	Batch processing systems, such as z/OS JES2 or MFES for LUW

Databases connections

The Database is a RDBMS connection definition. It is the entity referenced in the Database Tasks and it is identified by:

• A unique name (ID)
• A RDBMS type identifier, indicating the database type and host
• An ADO connection string

Linked Servers

When IBM Data Drivers and/or DB2 Connect licenses are not available, DB2 databases can be accessed thru SQL Server Linked Servers, defined using the Microsoft OLE DB Provider for DB2.

To use DB2 over linked servers, the connection must be defined as linked and the name of the linked server and catalog must be provided as well.

Important

Stored Procedure comparison task is not supported through Linked Servers.

File repositories

The File Repository is a file staging area definition, indicating where files are located and a set of default characteristics for the files stored in the repository.

There are two types of repositories:

• Local: files are directly accessible through the file system of the machine where Ianus is executed.
• Remote: files are not directly accessible through the file system of the machine where Ianus is executed. There are two sub-types of remote repositories:
  • luw: the host system is either a Linux, Unix or Windows system
  • zos: the host system is a z/OS mainframe system

With Local repositories, files will be directly accessed by Ianus. With Remote repositories, a (temporary) cache copy of the files will be downloaded via FTP and accessed by Ianus.

The repository is the entity referenced in the File Tasks and it is identified by:

• A unique name (ID)
• A repository type (local or remote)
• Default encoding (ASCII or EBCDIC)
• Default codepage (for EBCDIC/ASCII conversion)
• Default endianness (Big Endian or Little Endian)
• Default variable length record format (IBM, Micro Focus, etc.)
• For local repositories only:
  • Local path
• For remote repositories only, the connection details for the host containing the actual files:
  • Hostname
  • Port
  • Username
  • Password
  • Remote path
  • Local path (for cache copies)

Regions

The region holds the connection details for rehosted JES subsystem. It is referenced in the Jcl Submit Task and it is identified by:

• A unique name (ID)
• Region name
• Region type
• Hostname of the region
• TCP/IP Port number of the region
• Username of the user used to login to the region (where supported)
• Password of the user above

Resources

Resources are data items available for user plugins.

Status codes

Jobs and tasks are characterized by a status code that changes during their execution.

Jobs status codes

Status	Description
Ready	job is ready to be executed
Running	job is running
Success	job is terminated and all steps reported a Success status code
Warnings	job is terminated and one or more steps reported a Warning status code
Errors	job is terminated and one or more steps reported an Error status code

Tasks status codes

Status	Description
Ready	task is ready to be executed
Running	task is running
Success	task is terminated without Warnings or Errors
Warnings	task is terminated and reported one or more Warnings
Errors	task is terminated and reported one or more Errors
Aborted	task encountered a major failure preventing the conclusion of the task