Calendar terms and concepts

The following tables describe important terms and concepts that are used with calendars.

Calendar terms and concepts

Term

Definition

Calendar Base

A name (one to twenty-four mixed-case characters) for a collection of named periods of time that you can use when creating schedules for an object’s availability and for other object attributes.

The first time TOM is started, the name of the calendar definition base in use is DEFAULTCAL.

Only one calendar definition base can be active per TOMPLEX at any one time and you can create multiple calendar definition bases. Reasons to have more than one calendar definition base include

  • You want to test changes being made without causing the production calendar definition base to become unstable
  • You want to use a calendar definition base for specific recurring events or routine changes such as weekend backups
  • You want a disaster recovery calendar definition base that you can specify in the event that you need to recover an unexpectedly lost system

When defining a name for additional calendar definition bases, the following names are already used by TOM and not allowed to be specified as a calendar definition base name:

  • DEFAULTCAL
  • CALENDAR
  • DEFAULT
  • ACTIVE
  • BASE

DEFAULTCAL

Name of the calendar definition base that comes up the first time TOM is started.

To use a different calendar definition base, you must first create one from the TDEFBS view and then use the ACTivate line command to switch to the new calendar definition base or use the TOMEXEC API.

Day

A user-specified collection of days.

You must also give the group of days a 1 to 20-character day name (the day name can contain blanks). When creating the collection of days, you can select from: MON, TUE, WED, THU, FRI, SAT, and SUN.

For example, you can select the days MON, TUE, WED and THU and name this collection PRODUCTION DAYS. You can use the name PRODUCTION DAYS on the Schedules dialog to specify that an object is active or inactive on every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Another example is to select WED, SAT, and SUN and name this selection BACKUPS. When BACKUPS is specified, the object will be active (or inactive) on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays.

In addition, TOM provides the entries WKN (Saturday and Sunday), WKD (weekdays (Monday through Friday), and DLY (every day of the week) that you can use in object definitions.

Period

A user-specified From and To set of dates and times of day.

You must give a period a 1 to 20-character name (the period name can contain blanks). You can specify a range of dates (in From yyyy/mm/dd, To yyyy/mm/dd format) and times (in From hh:mm, To hh:mm format).

For example, you can create a period named MARCH from 09:00 on 2008/03/01 to 17:00 on 2008/03/31. You can use the MARCH period on the Schedules dialog to specify that an object is active (or inactive) from 9:00 AM, March 1, 2008 to 5:00 PM, March 31, 2008.

ALWAYS is the name of a period supplied by TOM that when used, means the object will be always available or always unavailable.

Note

Valid date formats are determined by the date format setting for MainView Windows mode parameters (option 0.1.4 from the MainView Selection Menu). The year portion of the date can be specified as 1 to 4 asterisks to indicate any year (wildcard year). See the MainView User Guide for more information about the date format.

Time

A user-specified time of day.

You can select and name a time (in From hh:mm, To hh:mm format) that you can use on the Schedules dialog to specify when an object should be active or inactive. The time name can be up to 20 characters long and can contain blanks.

For example, you can create a time named LUNCH from 13:00 to 14:00. You can use the LUNCH time on the Schedules dialog to specify that an object is active (or inactive) from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM.

Set

A named collection of any combination of already created periods, days, or times.

A set name can be up to 20 characters long and can contain blanks. Creating a set allows you to group periods, days, or times when multiple objects need to be active (or inactive). Sets can be especially useful when a group of objects all have the same complicated schedule because you only have to specify the schedule for the set once and not for each object individually.

AND logic is used within a calendar set, so all members of the set must evaluate as true for the result to be true.

Calendar Dependency

A term you will see while defining the following object definitions for an object on the object ADD or EDIT dialog:

  • Pre-start commands
  • Post-start commands
  • Pre-stop commands
  • Post-stop commands
  • Start retry commands
  • Stop retry commands
  • Schedules
  • Calendar overrides

You can specify that any of these definitions is effective only during a specific time or date (or a combination). All of the periods, days, times and sets that you create in the calendar definition bases can be used (and viewed) from the object definition input fields on the object ADD or EDIT dialog.

Include

Specifies that the object status should be ACTIVE or that the commands with the calendar dependency will be issued during the entered periods of time.

Exclude

Specifies that the object status should be STOPPED or that the commands with the calendar dependency will not be issued during the entered periods of time.

 

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