Agents (HOST)

Agents are the components that establish the connection between the Automation Engine and the application or Operating System in which the jobs will be processed. Agents start, monitor and report the current status of the jobs.

Object Definition

Object class: System object

Object type/Short form: HOST

Background/Purpose

Automic provides multiple types of agents that allow the execution, monitoring and reporting of jobs in the target system. This can be either an Operating System or an application, such as SAP, PeopleSoft, Siebel, etc. That is, agents are specific to the application or Operating System they connect to. Therefore their installation must take into consideration the requirements derived from the target system. For details please refer to the agent-specific instructions provided in the Installation Guide.

An agent logs in only once and, once connected, it remains always connected. The following duplicate login validation takes place:

Upon installation, the agent starts and tries to log in. If there is no agent connection with the same name, the Automation Engine accepts the login attempt and stores the agent name, port number, start time etc. It deletes this information when the particular agent connection ends. Doing so ensures a clear overview of agent connections.

If, on the other hand, the Automation Engine detects that an agent with the same name has already logged in, it tries to establish contact. The time span in which it waits for a response can be specified in the duplicateTimeout= (section [TCP/IP] parameter in the ini file. If the agent responds within the specified time span, the login attempt is rejected. If the agent does not respond, the double attempt to login is accepted and the login information (such as the start time) is updated.

Agents connect via TCP/IP to the communication process (CP). The communication between CP and agent is encrypted. It is the agents that are in charge of keeping the connection alive, as well. When it is lost, they try to reconnect; the interval of reconnect attempts is configurable.

Agents can be added, edited, renamed, etc. by administrators in Client 0 only. Configuring agents is also possible in their respective ini files. They are accessible in read only mode from all other clients, according to the user privileges.

Job Execution

If a Job is started on an OS agent, this job will be initiated in the OS, independent of the agent. The agent monitors the job and reports its status to the Automation Engine in certain cycles. When the job finishes, the agent also reports it. This may trigger possible follow-up jobs.

Job Reports

Job reports may be configured in the Job object. When the job is run, they are transferred to the Automation Enginedatabase. The OS agent provides the report as a file. The Automation Engine loads the report as individual blocks into the database.
Should the report exceed a configurable limit, only data comprising the configured size will be transferred into the database, where the last block transferred always contains the file's end. Thus the beginning and end of a job report are available in the database.

File Transfer Objects

A FileTransfer is an executable object that is always executed between two OS agents. To this end a TCP/IP connection is created between the two agents. Here as well, the data transfer is encrypted. The agent sending files reports the job status at intervals and the end of the job execution to the Automation Engine system. The connection between the two agents is closed at the end of the file transfer. See File Transfer Objects (JOBF).

Monitoring and Reporting

As soon as a job is started, the agent starts monitoring and reporting its status to the Automation Engine. Likewise, when the job finishes, it reports it too. See Reports for Server and Agents.