IBM Mainframe Forum

I cannot access IBM webpages it would seem that the site is having issues the past day or two and I need to clarify something.

I am studying JES and initiators and have just read that jobs assigned with class A will be completed before jobs that are assigned class B, so it would seem the alphabet is used for prioritizing jobs.

I want to know, can I use numbers for job classes and assign these classes to initiators? If so, would jobs assigned the class 1 have priority before any higher number and letter? Also, can the number 0 be used?

Thank you for your assistance in helping me understand!

I am studying JES and initiators and have just read that jobs assigned with class A will be completed before jobs that are assigned class B, so it would seem the alphabet is used for prioritizing jobs.

If your site uses Work Load Manager, I don't believe that this would apply -- WLM manages jobs and initiators to meet service goals. And if your site does not use WLM, I still don't believe that this would be true since JES supports performance groups to manage job priorities. Can you provide the manual reference where you found this?

However, the answer to your question is that yes, JES allows job classes to be numbers OR letters.

These users thanked the author Robert Sample for the post:

deucalion0 (Sat Aug 02, 2014 5:23 pm)

deucalion0 wrote:I cannot access IBM webpages it would seem that the site is having issues the past day or two and I need to clarify something.

I am studying JES and initiators and have just read that jobs assigned with class A will be completed before jobs that are assigned class B, so it would seem the alphabet is used for prioritizing jobs.

I want to know, can I use numbers for job classes and assign these classes to initiators? If so, would jobs assigned the class 1 have priority before any higher number and letter? Also, can the number 0 be used?

Thank you for your assistance in helping me understand!

Yes, you can have numeric JES2 job classes.

Relative priority is another matter. Work load manager job scheduling throws off everything I'm saying here, but ...

JES2 defines a number of "initiators" that are used to run jobs. The number is specified by each installation. Each initiator can be defined to run jobs in specified job classes; for example A B C D E F. If the initiator is idle, JES2 will select the highest priority class A job to run. If there are none, it will try to run a class B job, and so on. The operator can alter the class list, for example F E D C B A. With this class list, the initiator will select a class F job, then a class E job, and so on. The class list can include numerics, for example 3 2 1 A B C. This initiator will select class 3 jobs, class 2 jobs and so on, in the order the class list is specified.

Yes, you can use class 0.

Most installations have rules about the job classes you can use. These rules seldom make much sense any more, but you do want to follow them.

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deucalion0 (Sat Aug 02, 2014 5:23 pm)

Job classes can be Alpha, Numeric or a combination thereof (at least from version 2.1) . The name has no in bearing on the priority that is decided by the sysprog.

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deucalion0 (Sat Aug 02, 2014 5:23 pm)

Thank you all for your responses, this has cleared up a lot of confusion with regards to initiators and classes, I appreciate your help!