Understanding the Jobstream Views

AAI provides many views of jobstream run data, each of which can give you a different look into jobstream performance. Whether you are an operator, a jobstream administrator, analyst, or developer, you can surface the run data you need to get your job done quickly and precisely. This topic focuses on how you can use the jobstream run views to support daily monitoring or researching jobstream runs as part of a deeper performance analysis.

You will learn how you can work with all levels of run data, from the highest to the lowest and the paths in between and how they can point you to trouble spots so that you can head off SLA breaches in real time as well as over time.

More specifically, this topic provides you with an overview of the purpose and benefits of each view and their relationship to each other. In addition, you will find guidance about supporting information in other parts of AAI and, finally, use case examples of how to use the views to support typical daily monitoring task workflows.

The Jobstream Run Views

When investigating run data to understand jobstream performance, you need to work through views that present jobstream run data at many levels and from different aspects of execution performance. You also need to refer to jobstream and job definitions to understand the underlying structures, and you need to be able to navigate among all these as you work. This is equally true whether you are an operator monitoring current executions or you are an analyst or supervisor interested in understanding trends over time or exploring past executions.

In the following, you will find brief summaries of the jobstream run views at each level of detail, as well as helpful guidance about the supporting information that is linked from the views and tips for navigating among all these many views and pages.

Highest-Level Overviews of the Runs of All Jobstreams

Two views show you jobstream run data for all jobstreams, based on filters that you define, but in different ways. These are the highest-level summaries of jobstream runs, from which you can drill down.

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  The Jobstream Runs Timeline View contains a timeline chart that graphically shows the total runs in each state (complete, current, and forecasted) and in each final run status per business area, and allows you to drill down to subordinate business areas then finally to jobstreams. For information, see Monitoring Current Jobstream Runs with the Timeline View (Web UI)

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  The Jobstream Runs Grid View contains a table of every run of every jobstream. For each run, you have columns of execution properties including jobstream definition properties as well as execution data for the specific run. For information, see Monitoring Current Jobstream Runs with the Grid View (Web UI)

From either of these views, you can drill down to get overviews that show different aspects of all the runs of one specific jobstream. In addition, with one click on a specific run you can go straight to the Gantt chart view for that run.

Overview of the Runs of One Jobstream

When you want to know more about the execution performance over time of one jobstream that you have identified on either of the high-level overviews, click its name to go to its Jobstream Run Details page. Open the Run Details tab to find three views that show all the runs for that jobstream over time, each of which focus on a different aspect of the execution performance.

The following are the three Run Details views:

• Actual

  This view gives you a real-time overview of the status of jobstream runs in relation to the current time, which allows you to check the current health of the jobstream. The current time is marked by the Now flag that runs vertically down the timeline chart. For more information, see Jobstreams Run Details - Actual.

• Relative to SLA

  This view gives you an overview of the status of jobstream runs in relation to the SLA deadline for each run. This allows you not only to check the SLA compliance of the jobstream in recent and predicted runs but also to view the SLA compliance for a specific time range, including within historical run data. For more information, see Jobstreams Run Details - Relative to SLA.

• SLA Graph

  This view gives you both a graphical and tabular overview of the jobstream runs and their performance in relation to their SLA. The graphic at the top shows the duration or end times for all the jobstream runs in relation to the SLA deadline time. The table below contains jobstream details that are relevant to understanding how the runs perform against the jobstream's SLA. For more information, see Jobstreams Run Details - SLA Graph.

The Details of One Jobstream Run

The lowest level jobstream run view is the Gantt chart view of one run of a jobstream. The Gantt chart view shows all the jobs in the jobstream presented in their execution sequence against a timeline from start to end time. This view depicts an execution in rich detail, allowing you to view job dependencies, job execution statuses, and the critical path of the execution. For more information, see The Gantt View for a Jobstream Run (Web Interface).

You can open the Gantt chart view directly from any of the other views.

• On tables in these views, the start time of each run is a link that you can click to go to the Gantt chart view for that run.

• On timelines and graphs that show run durations or start/end times, you can click the duration bar or start/end point for any depicted executions to open the Gantt chart view for that run.

Linked Pages with Supporting Information

When investigating the execution performance of a jobstream, you also need to be able to refer to the jobstream's definition, including its alert and SLA details, as well as the details of the individual job definitions. Having this information allows you to interpret the run behavior in a meaningful context. To support your research, links to the jobstream and job definitions are integrated in the run views.

Jobstream Details

When you click the Name of a jobstream on any of the high-level overviews, the jobstream Details page opens. This page contains tabs for details arranged on four tab pages. One of those tabs is the Run Details tab with three views of that jobstream's runs, as described previously in Overview of the Runs of One Jobstream. The other three tabs cover additional jobstream details as follows:

• The Basic Information tab provides data about the structure, design and properties of the jobstream.

• The Jobs tab contains a list of all the jobs in the jobstream with links to the details of each job. Here you can also trim the jobstream or modify its start job.

• The Alerts tab contains a list all the alerts that have been issued for the jobstream.

Job definitions

All job names in the run details views, the jobstream details tab pages, and the Jobstream Tree pane of the Gantt chart view are links. Click a job name to open its job details with the job's basic properties, its predecessor and successor jobs, relationship to jobstreams, as well as its average run statistics and its run history. For information, see Job Details (Web Interface)

Manage Multiple Views on Your Browser

When working with AAI's web interface, remember that as you click through the links to different views or supporting information, you can open the destination page or view in another tab or window in your browser.

This way you can quickly switch from view to view and compare the information on the views. With separate windows, you can even put views side by side, for easy comparison or have several windows open while you monitor or analyze jobstream runs from different perspectives.

When you click a link, the destination page, tab or view replaces the current one. Right-click a link to choose to have it open in another tab or window.

Features of Jobstream Run Views

The jobstream run views have common features that are available on most, if not all, the views so you can move among the views with ease and comfort as you research run data at the level and subset that is most helpful to you. The following are the common features:

How Information Is Presented

The views range from high level aggregates of all jobstream runs down to the precise execution flow and dependencies of the jobs in one run of a specific jobstream. On these views, jobstream run information is presented in two ways:

• With graphics, which include the following:

  • Timelines: These are the primary type of graphic used in these views from the highest-level Jobstreams Timeline to the timeline on the Gantt chart view. They provide overviews with scannable visualizations that help you quickly identify patterns and any conspicuous discrepancies.

  • SLA graphs: These graphics chart the duration of runs against the defined SLA deadline.

  All graphics provide run details when you mouseover specific data points. You can scan the graphic and then home in on any points of interest for details.

• In lists or tables:

  Every view contains information in an aggregated list that runs parallel to a timeline or stands alone in a table of jobstream properties, averages, and deviations that you can filter, sort, and arrange to surface notable values.

Filtering to Narrow the Focus

The jobstream run views can include all runs from the past, what is currently running, and what is forecasted to run. On higher-level views, you could be seeing runs for all jobstreams that you have rights to view.

Use filters to manage this enormous amount of data and to focus your attention to runs that you are interested in. All views have filters, and all have filters for the date range of runs and the end state of runs. On views where it makes sense, you can filter on even more jobstream or run properties.

The defaults are the runs of the last 7 days until 2 days ahead in forecasted runs, and all run end states are included. The filters you set are kept as you move back and forth through the different views. For more information, see Using Filters (Web Interface).

Besides filtering the views, on tables you can sort by column values and in some cases also rearrange columns to have the columns that are most valuable to your tasks closer to the left (to avoid horizontal scrolling) or to see comparable properties next to each other. For information, see Working with Tables (Web Interface).

Drilling Down for Details

Every view of jobstream runs has links in the tables and list panes that drill further down. Depending on the view, the links are the name of the jobstream or business area (for example, on the Jobstream Runs - Timeline View) or the start time of a specific jobstream run (for example, on the Jobstream Runs - Grid View or any of the Run Details views).

Breadcrumbs in the page title of the view contain links that take you up to higher-level views.

These links allow you to quickly navigate between the levels of detail, particularly to drill down in one click to get more details to support your monitoring or investigations of jobstream performance.

Exporting and Sharing Options

Many views allow you to export the data that you have filtered and viewing currently. This allows you to share your observations and discoveries about specific jobstream performance with your teams and superiors. Having a shareable CSV file that captures real-time data can be a great aid in when rallying your support teams to problem solve potential or real SLA breaches. These snapshots of jobstream activity and performance at any point in time can act as quickly produced report. For more information, see Exporting Table Data.

You can also share the URL of any page you are viewing with people who have access to those jobstreams in AAI. This way you can direct someone to a specific jobstream, for example, and they can see the real-time activities and status of the jobstream.

Example: Starting Daily Monitoring at the Timeline View

As a daily operator who needs to monitor your jobstream runs in real time to ensure that they meet their SLAs, you typically would start on the main Jobstream Timeline view, where you get an overview of the current jobstream run status per business area. You will return to this view often to keep checking the run status of jobstreams in different states of execution (Done, Running, Predicted). For information, see Monitoring Current Jobstream Runs with the Timeline View (Web UI).

Your monitoring activities would generally look like the following:

1. Start on the main Jobstream Timeline view.

   Here you see only whether the runs are running early or late, so you can quickly see how well your jobstreams are executing in general. Most likely, your filters are already set to include only your business areas and jobstreams. You might want to adjust the filters in the following way:

   • Restrict the business areas further
   • Reduce the time frame to focus only on the most recent runs

2. Shift your focus to jobstreams where SLAs are not being met or are in danger of being missed:

   • Set the SLA Status filter to include everything except EARLY.
   • Maybe also set the State filter to exclude COMPLETED.

   Now you are looking at only business areas that have failing jobstreams, and you can drill down until you identify the specific problem jobstreams.

   Note that, although jobstreams might be defined with alerts that are triggered at various critical times, what your investigation helps you do is recognize danger signs ahead of the alerts and notice patterns that are clues to the problem origins.

3. Investigate a jobstream that you have identified as being in trouble.

   To do this, click the jobstream name to open the Jobstream Details page, then open the Run Details tab to see all the runs of the jobstream on one page and, more interestingly, to see the runs from different perspectives on the three views: Actual, SLA, and SLA Graph.

   • Change the filter to narrow down or broaden the time frame for the runs and filter for certain execution states, as you need.

   • Click column headers to sort the values in ascending or descending order.

     For example, click Start Time in descending order to see the planned and most recent runs at the top of the list.

     Then, click Margin to sort the values in descending order to bring the runs with the greatest the variance between the actual and SLA time to the top of the list. You also can see clusters of similar variances and might be able to identify, for example, that the variance is greater at the end of the week. So, something is happening on those days. It would be worthwhile to investigate further. Is it a server load issue, or something else?

   • Switch to the SLA Graph view to see whether there are any patterns of variance between the actual end times and the prescribed SLA time.

   • On the graphs on any of the three views, mouseover data points to get the detail summary for the run in a pop-up box.

4. Drill down to the Gantt chart view for a specific jobstream run.

   From any of the run views, click a run start time on a table or the run data point on a graph to open the Gantt chart view for that jobstream run. Here you can explore the do the following:

   • See how far the execution has progressed in relation to the SLA.
   • Turn on the average runs indicator to see how long individual jobs and container jobs are running in relation to the average time for that job.
   • Turn on critical path indicators and click through the progress to see where the next critical jobs lie and get a sense of how many more essential milestones are left to hit before completion.
   • Turn on dependency indicators to see the predecessor and successor relationships between jobs, especially looking at the dependencies related to critical path jobs.
   • For an individual job that seems to be affecting the success of the jobstream run, you can research its own history, relationships and track record. To do this, click the job name in the Jobstream Tree pane to open the Job Details page for the job.

5. You can move back up to higher-level views to research how successful other recent runs have been. Then drill down to the Gantt chart view for those runs to see if there a similar bottlenecks and delays. Can you prevent similar delays in the forecasted runs to come?

6. Where you find trouble spots, share your findings with your team to find a resolution.

7. Continuously check the health of your jobstreams as the day progresses, returning to the high-level overviews and then drilling down to the low-level Gantt chart views, then back up again. You can identify where jobstreams are in danger and research the causes of delays to head off SLA breaches.