We are deciding to use either CONDITIONS or FORCE for our standard way of starting a dependent job when a prececessor has completed ok.
Under what conditions would FORCE be preferred over CONDITION?
Why both methods?
We believe FORCE overrides CONDITIONS if both are used on same job?
Pro's and Con's of using each.
Thank you,
--Goo
CONDITION vs FORCE -----Pro's and Con's ----- Discussion
We have been using Control-M since the Old 4th Dimesion days, our thought process behind force vs conditional subsequent processing is built around the job design, if something executes on a set schedule, we used a schedule for the definition, if the process/job has conditional programatic design, we used a Force, so if Job (A) would get a CC=4, forcejob (B), but if Job (A) gets an CC=8 job (B) is not executed. The CON's of forcejob is that pre determining your daily workload schedule will not identify FORCEJOB's. In additional if the (MAYBE) condition is utilized as part of your scheduling, the job that resolves these typically are part of the daily refresh process. We have because of multiple forcejob conditions/situations built into our schedule where we needed the (MAYBE) resolve process to execute mid stream in some of our schedules, this has posed no problems and solved our specific need.
Pros - If you have long jobstreams and some jobs that get ordered do not run on the same day. Can save on license cost by changing to force as license is calculated on the number of jobs ordered.
cons - Jobs defined with the force option will order if you force order the job containing the "force". They will order again when its dependent job finishes. Example. Job A will force job B when it completes successfully. Job A has a calendar to only order on Mondays. You need to re-run job A on Wednesday. It must be forced ordered due to the calendar. When you force order Job A, job B will also order. If you do not catch this and then allow job A to run, it will force order job B again. Now you have 2 Job B's in your schedule which can cause alot of problems. This is a very simlpe example. What would happen if you force order a job stream with hundreds of jobs containing many "forces". What if the person that force ordered a job stream is not familiar with the jobs that have "force". I prefer to use ctmorder in a separate job block over the force order option.
cons - Jobs defined with the force option will order if you force order the job containing the "force". They will order again when its dependent job finishes. Example. Job A will force job B when it completes successfully. Job A has a calendar to only order on Mondays. You need to re-run job A on Wednesday. It must be forced ordered due to the calendar. When you force order Job A, job B will also order. If you do not catch this and then allow job A to run, it will force order job B again. Now you have 2 Job B's in your schedule which can cause alot of problems. This is a very simlpe example. What would happen if you force order a job stream with hundreds of jobs containing many "forces". What if the person that force ordered a job stream is not familiar with the jobs that have "force". I prefer to use ctmorder in a separate job block over the force order option.