CA Workload Automation AE (AutoSys Edition) is a workload automation (aka job scheduling) tool supplied by Computer Associates. The name of the product has gone through various iterations; previous versions to r11.3 were known as "Unicenter AutoSys Job Management", the AE part referring to AutoSys Edition (there are other CA Workload Automation tools that have other suffixes).
The Application Servers and Schedulers are supported on: Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, Linux and Windows servers.
Clients (Remote Agents) can be run on Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Windows, z/OS, OS/390, zSeries, VSE, and OpenVMS.
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AutoSys was first developed by William Arntz and Walter Goodwin who created AutoSystems Corp to market it. They had partnered with and were guided by Frederick Lenz during the inception, development and ultimately the marketing of the product. It was eventually sold to Platinum Technology International in 1995 (one of many systems management companies acquired by Platinum Technology that year[1]). Platinum invested in new features and functionality including the Xpert and JobVision modules[2] . In May 1999, Platinum was itself acquired by Computer Associates (CA) for 3.5 billion U.S. dollars, at that time the largest transaction in the history of the software industry.[3] CA offered $29.25 per share, almost a three-to-one premium over Platinum's stock price of $9.875.[4] In 2006 CA was the subject of intense media scrutiny as it became clear that a $2.2 billion accounting fraud had been orchestrated by chief executive Sanjay Kumar[5]; however the popularity of the AutoSys product remained unaffected.
William Arntz later became Producer, Director, Screenwriter, President at Captured Light, makers of cult film "What the Bleep Do We Know!?".[6] Walter Goodwin became founder and CEO of Stirling Systems Group, LLC and later Terma Software Labs .[7]
The AutoSys r11 architecture is a 3-tier architecture consisting of Client utilities, Application Server(s) / Scheduler Server(s) and Database(s). This architecture is a new concept for AutoSys and provides performance and scalability improvements when compared to previous releases. A SDK has been included with AutoSys r11 allowing in-house code to connect to the Application Server(s) in the same way as the supplied client (agent and interface) components.
Replaces the Event Processor. A multi-threaded process which selects events from the Event Server and processes them. Changes from 4.5 include multiple event batching and dynamic thread creation.
A new component which handles the Database connectivity for the AutoSys r11 clients, Command Line Utilities and the GUIs. It has a persistent connection to the DB to allow improved response speed. It also removes the requirement of having a global database user/password.
The DB containing the events. Differences from 4.5 include vendor library files for the Server and client components.
The default user interface for AutoSys is Workload Command Centre (WCC). It consists of a number of applets that provide job management:
The Remote Agent is now a persistent process on all Operating Systems. It no longer connects directly to the back end AutoSys database(s), but instead sends all updates through the Application Server component. The makes the Agent database and instance agnostic.
eTrust Embedded Entitlements Manager is the replacement of the eTrust Access Control component seen in version 4.5. eEEM is a cut down version of eAC and is aimed at a single application access control point rather than a system based tool. It allows user and group access to AutoSys and WCC resources via an ACL administered GUI, access can be granted or denied based upon filters and groups or managed explicitly.
Several components used by AutoSys are shared with other CA products (e.g. CA NSM or CA Audit) and are stored in a common folder.
As of 07/12/2011, the most current version of the above components:
It is important to note exact versions when dealing with the product and CA-Support. For example, there is a world of difference between WCC r11.0 and WCC r11.1 sp1.
The current version has been GA since November 2007. This version comes with eIAM (Embedded Identity and Access management) security management module to secure access to scheduling resources.
After r11.3, r11.5 will follow. r11.5 is discussed in IDC's "The Evolution of Job Scheduling: CA's Approach to Workload Automation" by Tim Grieser.[8]
AutoSys has a large and active user community. In addition to localized user groups there are email and online forums where those interested can share information about the core AutoSys product, CA's bolt-on modules (like JobScape, HostScape, Timescape, Web Interface, Business Objects, WCC, eTrust Access Control & EEM), best practices (e.g. promoting JIL code through a development cycle) and 3rd party offerings (like iXp and JAWS).
A number of 3rd party products exist to complement CA's basic AutoSys functionality. Products include: