>Did you consider well the pro's and con's of widely using the Contol-M >features? This will tie you rigidly to this product and will cost you a lot of >work if you decide to convert to another scheduler in the future. Having >learned from Syncsort and PDSMAN whose features were not compatible with the >corresponding IBM products, we only use a few of the % features of Control-M >and only in a very controlled group of jobs. This also answers your question >partly.
I only want to use a few AutoEdit variables so that we can avoid having to maintain test and prod versions of the same JCL. After struggling for many months, I have finally got my client to adopt and implement standards for test dataset names and libraries. So it is possible to switch JCL from running against PROD resources to alternative TEST resources by passing an Environment ID and letting all the DSN's reference symbols that are derived from the EnvID. Beyond this, TEST JCL needs to differ from PROD in only a few other respects: (a) Initial character of the JOB name, (b) Account Field, (c) JOBCLASS, and (d) USER on the JOB card. I had hoped to make these four Control-M symbols, plus the previously mentioned %%ENVID. So only the first few lines of the JCL member would be affected. In the event that my client changes their mind about Control-M, I can easily refactor the JCL to whatever the new requirement demands. I have developed a JCL parsing tool that loads JCL statement text into a SQL database. Plus other tools to identify patterns for change and generate PANVALET ++UPDATE statements to make the changes. So doing what I plan won't tie me to the product and it wouldn't cost that much to convert to something else. However, doing what I plan will be a complication for developers who want to submit outside of Control-M. I was certain that someone else on the list would have addressed this need. But it looks like I will need to follow John M's advice and roll my own. Which is going to be hard since I haven't done REXX in 20 years. Also, the solution proposed by Aussie Anthony Thompson won't work for me, since I am pretty sure that jobs ordered using CTMAPI will still cost against our license count. Thanks to all who have responded to this inquiry. John ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
