J-MAN

The tasks associated with the coding and maintenance of JCL and batch schedules often require very detailed understanding in terms of knowledge and necessary attention.
The IT operations and business needs often do not allow you to have the information and time that would be needed to optimally perform these tasks.
The continuing need to make changes can result in deterioration over time even of those objects initially created with good quality standards.

In addition, it is often necessary to convert objects between different environments, both to move them from one context to another for example – from testing to production – which means it is necessary to manage different versions of JCL simultaneously.

THE J-MAN SOLUTION

J-MAN provides an effective and efficient solution to the problems related to the creation and maintenance of production objects (syntax validation, quality, creating clones, automatic application of changes, migrations between different environments), providing high performance, reductions in cost, labor optimization and reliability.

The J-MAN interface, available in both traditional ISPF environment and as a plugin for the Eclipse platform, provides a solution including complete and easy editing, characterized by a constant automated syntactical and quality control validation (related to the environment where jobs and schedules will be executed), an efficient cloning tool and automatic editing of objects capable of automatically adapting the objects to different target environments.

OBJECTIVES AND FUNCTIONALITY OF JMAN

J-MAN guarantees:

  • Automated generation of objects with no structural, logic, format or syntax errors
  • Automatic documentation (within the same job) of the use of resources – files, tables, databases
    – used by the programs within the Jobs
  • Adherence to predefined client standards and naming conventions
  • A comprehensive quality control of the JCL,
    for example:

    • The consistency of file allocations by the JCL and programs executed
    • The existence of any required DB2 plans
    • The existence of any files referenced in the JCL streams
  • Automatic propagation of objects (Jobs and schedules) between different environments (development-testing, testing-production, environment-A, environment-B, environment-n), with automatic change of JCL details and structure of the job according to user- defined rules

The functions described are possible both during the editing phase of the objects and in a completely batch mode.

BENEFITS

  • Virtually eliminate the incidence of errors in production
  • Optimize adherence to company standards
  • Automate the bulk of activities necessary for the management of multiple production environments
  • Drastically reduce the time necessary for the management of production objects
  • Increase productivity in the creation and maintenance of JOBs, PROCs and automated schedules