Scheduling time windows to allow or restrict job runs on target servers

In a production environment, it is a best practice to run maintenance jobs on servers when they are relatively idle. For example, you might want to make a set of servers available for running software deploy jobs during a specific time period every Friday.In addition, you might decide that the workload on your servers is too high at certain times during the week or month for any TrueSight Server Automation jobs to be allowed to execute. 

In TrueSight Server Automation, you can schedule time windows to allow or restrict jobs from executing on your servers. This topic explains the key differences between the different types of windows that you can create in your environment. Follow the links at the end of the topic to see detailed walkthrough examples of each type of window.

What is a maintenance window?

The maintenance window feature is ideal for restricting deploy jobs. All commit operations for advance deploy jobs on the server are allowed to begin execution only within the maintenance window. If the commit phase of a deploy job begins outside of the maintenance window, the deploy job fails with a warning. The reason for the focus on the commit phase is that all software packages and patches are applied to target servers only during the commit phase of a deploy job.

What is an exclusion window?

The exclusion window feature enables you to define periods of time during the day, week, or month, when you expect the workload on your servers to be high and any execution of TrueSight Server Automation jobs might over-utilize resources. During these periods of time, no TrueSight Server Automation jobs are allowed to execute on any of the servers that you specify.


What is an ACL policy time window?

While creating an ACL policy, you can create a time window, during which a role is assigned one or more additional authorizations. The role is assigned the additional authorizations only during that time window. For example, in the context of Patching, you might want to allow Patching users to run catalog update jobs or analysis jobs at any time, but restrict them to executing remediation jobs only on weekends.

An ACL policy time window can provide a role with additional authorizations for any type of TrueSight Server Automation object and not just servers. Although the ACL policy time window is more flexible than a maintenance window, it is a complex feature and requires background knowledge of users, roles, authorizations and TrueSight Server Automation objects. For information about users, roles, authorizations and TrueSight Server Automation objects, see Managing-access.

Choosing the right type of window

You must decide which type of time window you want to use, depending on the use case that you want to restrict. Do you want to restrict all roles or only some specific roles? What types of jobs do you want to restrict? The following table summarizes the key differences between the different types of time windows, and will help you choose the right type of time window for your use case.

 

Maintenance window

Exclusion window

ACL policy time window

What does it do?

Restricts the commit phase of a deploy job to begin execution on specified servers only within a specific time period

Blocks the execution of any TrueSight Server Automation jobs on specified servers during specific time periods

Provides a role with additional authorizations during a specific time period.

Who does it restrict?

Restricts all roles

Restricts all roles

Can restrict specific roles

What objects does it apply to?

Applied automatically to the target servers selected during creation of the maintenance window

Applied automatically to the target servers selected during creation of the exclusion window

Must be manually applied to all TrueSight Server Automation objects involved in the use case

Type of jobs that are restricted?

Applicable only to deploy jobs

Can be applied to any type of TrueSight Server Automation job

Can be applied to any type of TrueSight Server Automation job or TrueSight Server Automation object

 


Where to go next

See the following walkthrough examples for step-by-step instructions on creating each specific type of time window.

 

 

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