How do ZENworks schedules work and what effect do they have on each other?

Articles and Tips: qna

01 May 2004

There are so many scheduling options I'm not sure which one to configure. How do these schedules work and what effect do they have on each other?

There are five different objects which allow you to configure a schedule in ZENworks for Servers. They are:

TED Distributor
TED Distribution
TED Channel
TED Subscriber
Distributed Server Package/Policies

These schedules require some planning to make sure they efficiently work without affecting performance during the day. The first schedule that affects TED is the eDirectory Refresh Schedule configured on the TED Distributor. This schedule tells the TED agent how frequently to look for new work including assigned distributions, channel assignments and subscriber configuration. By default, this schedule is set to NEVER. You can change this option if you want your distributor to find new work during the day. However, this schedule doesn't determine when the work will happen because it only dictates when it finds out about the work. Note that once a Refresh starts, it continues until completed regardless of the scheduled end time.

The second schedule is the Build schedule specified on the TED Distribution object. The Build schedule determines when the distributor, which is assigned to service the distribution, will gather the content and create the .TED file that will be distributed to the subscribers. The Gather process has an effect on server performance because it increases the CPU usage on the server. Users may notice a difference in performance, so Novell generally recommends having a dedicated distributor for your larger distributions. The default Build schedule is set to NEVER. In other words, the distribution will never be built and thus, never sent. Make sure you configure the schedule to build the distribution prior to the Send schedule because it obviously has to be completely built before it can be sent. As with the Refresh schedule, once a build starts, it continues until completed.

The third schedule is the Send schedule, configured on the TED Channel object. This schedule controls when the distributor sends content to the subscribers in the channel. When the start time occurs the distributor will read the subscriber's list, read the configuration for each subscriber associated with the channel and then send the configuration and any distributions that have been built to the subscribers. Unlike the other schedules, you can specify both a start and end time. When the end is reached, the distribution stops, regardless of whether or not it was completely sent to the subscribers. The next time the send schedule is active, the distribution will resume where it left off. Also, remember that this schedule specifies when the distributor sends to the subscribers it knows about. If there are parent subscribers, they will continue sending to their end node subscribers until they have sent all the data they received from the distributor.

The fourth schedule is the Extract schedule and is configured on the TED Subscriber. This schedule determines when the content stored in the .TED file is extracted and applied. If you are sending files this will cause the files to be extracted to their specified locations; if you are sending application objects then this will extract the files and create the objects; if you are sending policies then the policy files will be extracted and the policy agent will be refreshed. The Extract schedule specifies the time to start extracting. Again, once an extraction starts it will continue until completed.

For more information on zenworks for servers check out www.novell.com/products/zenworks/

The final schedule is the Policy Application schedule. This is available in the policies found in the Distributed Server Package. This schedule determines when the policy should be applied to the server. For instance, if you scheduled a Server Down Policy to run on Thursday at midnight this schedule would ensure that the server is not taken down by the policy agent until that time. The subscriber must first extract the policy files from the distribution that was sent for the Policy schedule to be processed.

* Originally published in Novell Connection Magazine

Disclaimer

The origin of this information may be internal or external to Novell. While Novell makes all reasonable efforts to verify this information, Novell does not make explicit or implied claims to its validity.