schedulix v2.7

[Ronald Jeninga]

Hi All,

finally I can now proudly announce the 2.7 release of schedulix to be the latest stable release.

To check it out from github, you do a

git clone https://github.com/schedulix/schedulix.git -b v2.7 schedulix-2.7

this will create a new directory called schedulix-2.7 with the current v2.7 sources. Subsequent pulls will keep the sandbox up to date.

To upgrade from 2.6.1 to 2.7, do the following:

1. shut down the installation (i.e. the schedulix server and any jobservers running at the same node)
2. make a database backup
3. execute the generated-upgrade-2.6.1-to-2.7.sql; This file is found in the sql/dbms_gen directory (dbms \in {ing, pg, mysql})
4. now copy the 2.7 tree next to the 2.6.1 tree
5. let the schedulix symbolic link point to the new schedulix-2.7 (rm && ln)
6. start the scheduling server with "server-start -protected" which disables internal threads as well as "normal" user logins
7. connect as SYSTEM and inspect the system
8. shut down the server and start up normally

As always, it is a good idea to understand the above steps. It is only a rough recipe and might need some adaptations to match your setup.
The database backup allows you to downgrade to the 2.6.1 version again. BUT beware, the backup is not aware of newly submitted jobs or jobs that are reported to be finished..

And of course, we're here to help :-)

The change between 2.6.1 and 2.7 that caused the most work is the implementation of multiple writers.
Because of the ease of producing bugs in concurrent environments, we still regard the feature as experimental. But any of you is heartily invited to test it.
(You'll have to set the property WriterThreads in the server.conf file to some reasonable value greater than 1; we tested with up to 10 parallel writer threads).

Other new features include

• JSON renderer
• Rerun triggers restart broken finished jobs
• 'sdmsctl test' reads the server configuration and tries to connect to the database. If this is successful, the server will start without problems.
• Improved filter management
• Jobs can export parameters to their environment
• Broken State is allowed to be a final state
• Local suspend doesn't suspend the children of a batch or job
• SHOW SYSTEM WITH LOCKS; shows the locks in the system (only interesting if working with multiple writer threads)
• Job On Ice (comment out a job) -- this was actually a feature request from one of you
• Enhanced comments

Have fun!

Regards,

Ronald

[Dieter Stubler]

Hi,

Ronald described how to upgrade the schedulix server to 2.7.

After upgrading the server you also have to upgrade the web gui.

To upgrade the web gui:

1. Open the Zope management interface (http://hostname:port/manage example http://localhost:8080/manage) and log in as a manager (sdmsadm)
   
2. Rename the folder to SDMS_OLD
3. Import the SDMS.zexp 

Note: 

This works only if you followed the installation instructions and created symlinks for the files in your zope instance using the schedulix symlink now pointing to the new 2.7 files.

Regards

Dieter

[Vishal Kadam]

Hi,

I am trying to install Schedulix 2.7. I am following the installation document, but the download source distribution from github refers to schedulix-2.6.1?

Does the latest 2.6.1 has all the features of 2.7 or need to use download the 2.7 version?

Regards,

Vishal Kadam

[Ronald Jeninga]

Hi Vishal,

the features of the 2.6.1 version are a large subset of the 2.7 features.
Not too much has changed though. The main, but still regarded experimental, new feature is the possibility of having multiple writer threads.
This on itself isn't something worth an upgrade, unless you're dealing with high volumes (1,000,000 jobs/day and more).

Now we did a bit of bug fixing in the 2.7 (mainly bugs and flaws in new features), but I didn't find the time to publish those yet.
This is one of the tasks I want to deal with this week.

The version number mentioned in the documentation is merely a number. Things change, but first of all we try to keep things as backward compatible as possible, which means that good practices in version X are good practices in version X+1, though there might be an easier way to do it. This also applies to the installation procedure. We ourselves learn with every installation and this sometimes results in new ideas. Still the overall method remains the same and the installation guide for schedulix 2.5.1 will mostly apply to schedulix 2.7, even if a few details have changed.

If you can wait for a week, I'll fix some details. This will save you a bit of work (though not much).

In general, if you've a working installation of version X, and some bug fixes are published in Github, an upgrade will be easy:
1. Update your sandbox (git pull)
2. Do a "make new" (assuming SDMSHOME, ... are all set)
3. Shut down the server
4. Replace the jar file
5. Start the server

If prepared properly, the last 3 activities will take only a few minutes. Running jobs are not affected, so it can be done during day time.
Of course, before doing a production upgrade it'll be a good idea to test the procedure (and the new jar file) first.

Regards,

Ronald

[Vishal Kadam]

Thanks Ronald.

I have successfully installed 2.7 on my local environment.

Regards,

Vishal Kadam 

[Vishal Kadam]

Thanks Ronald,

Please let me know when the updates are ready.

Regards,

Vishal Kadam