Introduction

Welcome to Tidal Automation (TA), the premier enterprise job scheduling solution. TA automates repetitive computer-related tasks and can be easily tailored to your specific business needs. If your business requires small or large amounts of batch processing on a regular basis, TA is the software for the job.

Tidal Automation Design Concepts

The sections below describe some of the key features in TA.

TA Scheduling Layer

TA exists as a scheduling layer above your jobs to control when, where, and how they are run. TA is expandable to many users and can run many jobs throughout your network, all from a centralized Master production schedule.

TA makes it easy to run your jobs on a repeating schedule. Daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly schedules can be created easily, and can be tested in advance before jobs are run on them. Jobs can even depend on the status of other jobs and files, to make sure that all your resources are in place before running the jobs.

Network Support

TA has all the tools for controlling and organizing jobs on your network. It includes a fully configurable queue feature to distribute, prioritize, and queue up jobs so that your network load is optimized at all times. It includes smart agent communication that runs jobs on behalf of the system, and reports back when the jobs finish. Agents are available on Windows, Unix, OpenVMS, and z/OS platforms and dependencies can be set up between them. TA integrates your network to run like a giant processing machine, maximizing throughput.

Monitoring and Messaging Services

TA includes exception-based job monitoring and messaging services. It monitors the progress of each job that is submitted, and can provide user-defined messaging when jobs enter phases of the production schedule. For example, if your job stops for some reason, you can be automatically notified of the problem, then diagnose it from a remote location, and start the job again. Messaging services include console alerts, email notifications, SNMP traps for network management systems, and telephone and pager notifications. Using TA tools, you can achieve previously unequaled levels of scheduling efficiency.

Additionally, TA includes a complete messaging and auditing system that fully tracks all actions taken by users, all error messages, and all system messages. Within TA, search tools and filters enable you to diagnose and cure problems quickly.

Security

TA supports a secured, configurable working model through security policies and per-agent passwords. You can subdivide scheduling tasks among various types of users based on their scheduling responsibilities. Agents can be restricted to specific users. Scheduling activity can be filtered for a production environment that is safe and customized to accommodate your expanding business.

Flexibility

TA supports the way people work on scheduling projects with its workgroups feature. Users can configure their own workgroup environment, enabling a group of users to have access to a set of jobs and other supporting data objects like calendars that are owned by the group. Users can be insulated from the vast scheduling activity that is possible. All users can change and view only the information that is allowed by their security profile.

Fault Tolerance

Fault tolerance is an optional module for TA. Fault tolerance ensures that you have uninterrupted scheduling when a Primary Master goes down. It includes a fault monitoring system that will automatically and seamlessly transfer control to a Backup Master. If your scheduling activity is mission critical, you need fault tolerance.

Note: To enable fault tolerance for your TA network, you must purchase a Fault Tolerant Master and apply the appropriate license. You must also install the Fault Monitor and Backup Master as described in the Tidal Automation Installation Guide.

TA Components

TA has many different components and provides the flexibility to support many different customer environments. You can tailor your own system to have multiple Masters, multiple agents, additional adapters, install fault tolerance for each Master, and so on.

The diagram below shows the basic TA system components potentially involved a system installation. There are two required TA components:

• Primary Master

• Client Manager

All other TA components are optional and depend on your environment and job scheduling needs.

Note: When using Fault Tolerance, the connections between the components can change from what is depicted above. Initially, the connections are as shown. However, when the Backup Master takes over as the Primary Master, the Master Database, Agents, and Adapters connect to the Backup Master. See the Tidal Automation Installation Guide for details.

Master Database

TA stores the job scheduling objects and metadata in the database. TA supports Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and PostgreSQL databases depending on your environment.

• TA supports one of these databases in Windows and Unix environments:

  Microsoft SQL Server

  Oracle. TA supports these database platforms when connecting to the Oracle Database:

  Oracle RAC

  AWS RDS for Oracle (cloud)

  Oracle DBAAS (cloud)

  Oracle Autonomous (cloud)

  PostgreSQL

• The default Master database name is “Admiral”.

Master (or Primary Master)

The Master is the primary TA component that conducts all scheduling tasks. You can have one or more Masters in your network. The Master can be installed on either the Windows platform or the Unix platform. The basic functionality of TA remains the same regardless of the platform of the Master.

Сlient Manager

The Client Manager allows the Master to achieve higher performance and scalability. The purpose of the Client Manager is to service requests from user initiated activities, such as through the TA Web Client, TA Transporter and from other external sources that utilize the Command Line Interface (CLI) or published TA Web services. The Client Manager allows the TA Master to focus more capacity on core scheduling needs related to job execution and job compilations, while the Client Manager addresses demands from activities such as users viewing/configuring scheduling data and output. The Client Manager constantly syncs the information from the Master database into its own in-memory database that it then uses to provide all TA Web Client users with current information. Multiple Clien

Managers connected to the same Master can be deployed to address additional performance needs.

The Client Manager is required if you want to use the TA Web Client, the Transporter, the Command Line Interface (CLI), REST, or mobile applications.

TA Web Client

The TA Web Client is the main user interface for managing TA jobs, scheduling, connections, configuration, and so on. The TA Web Client connects to the Client Manager using a browser.

Mobile Devices

The Tidal application is withdrawn from the iOS App Store to make the changes necessary to properly support current and future releases of Tidal.

If you have further questions, or have a wish list of features that you would like to see in the Tidal mobile application, please contact product@tidalautomation.com.

Command Line Interface (CLI)

The Command Line Interface program provides access to TA using the sacmd.cmd (Windows) or sacmd.sh (Unix/Linux) program through the MS-DOS command prompt or Unix command utility. You can do things like automate TA job control functions by including commands in scripts or by embedding job control functions in the code running your company processes. The command line program can also be used from the TA Web Client.

The Command Line Interface program is fully documented, including installation, in the Tidal Automation Command Line Program Guide.

Agents

An agent is a separate installation of TA that runs jobs on behalf of the Master. Agents help you to automate the execution of jobs that you know need to be performed on a regular basis, Offloading jobs to agents frees the Master for intensive scheduling tasks such as production compiles. Agents exist for various platforms. For the current list of the types of agents available for TA, see “Installing Agents” in the Tidal Automation Installation Guide. The Windows Agent and the Unix Agent are the two most commonly used agents.

Each agent can connect to a Master by specifying the Master-to-agent communication port and the Master-to-agent file transfer port numbers.

Adapters

TA provides adapters for many software products to enable connectivity to and access by TA. The Master has an Adapter Host it uses to manage the adapters and is the interface that the adapters use to connect to the Master. Adapters are provided with the base TA installation but must be licensed. In some cases, adapters need to be installed or configured. For a list of the adapters provided for TA, see “Installing Adapters” in the Tidal Automation Installation Guide.

Backup Master

The Backup Master is used in a fault tolerance configuration. Fault tolerance requires one Backup Master for each Primary Master. The Backup Master operates exactly like the Primary Master, but is activated only if the Primary Master experiences a system, network or –machine failure. The Backup Master must run on the same platform and version of software used by the Primary Master. The hardware specifications of the backup machine should be equal or greater than the specifications for the primary machine.

The Backup Master must specify the Backup-to-Master port number for transferring scheduling data from the Primary Master to keep the Masters synchronized.

Fault Monitor

The Fault Monitor is part of the TA fault tolerance configuration. The Fault Monitor continually monitors a Primary Master and Backup Master for error conditions. If a failure indicator appears on the Primary Master, the Fault Monitor transfers control to the Backup Master. The Fault Monitor must be installed on a separate machine independent from the primary and backup machines.

Remote Master

A Remote Master is simply an additional TA Master that is installed in a different environment. The Remote Master allows a connection to another TA Master for sharing global TA variables between TA environments. Variables definitions must have “Publish value to remote Masters” selected in the TA environment where they reside prior to being available through a remote Master connection.

Transporter

The TA Transporter application transports scheduling objects from one TA instance (source) to another TA instance (destination). For example, you can use the Transporter to promote jobs from a test instance to a production instance. The primary strength of TA Transporter is its ability to automate the copying of job data, although it can copy other data types as well.

The Transporter is fully documented, including installation, in the Tidal Automation Transporter User Guide.

Network Configuration

TA can be configured on a network in many different ways. You can connect any number of licensed Masters using any number of licensed agents, each located anywhere on your network.

Fault Tolerance Configuration

Fault tolerance can be added to a TA network to provide an extra degree of scheduling reliability. In a fault tolerant environment, each Primary Master is connected to a dedicated Backup Master and a fault monitor machine.

In this setup, the Primary Master periodically shares data with the Backup Master during normal operation. Only one Master (normally the Primary Master) has control of scheduling at any time. If the Primary Master has a network, power, or software failure, control is transferred to the Backup Master.

System Requirements

There are different requirements for the Windows and Unix platforms. Both platforms use the Client Manager.

Refer the Tidal Automation Compatibility Matrix for the minimum system requirements for installing and running TA. The specified quantities of CPU, memory and disk space must be available for exclusive use by TA. Use additional RAM and disk space as necessary for your particular environment.

Support for Java 17

Starting with the 2023 Spring release, downloads of Tidal Automation (TA), Tidal Explorer (TE), Tidal Repository (TR), APM Data Stream, and the Tidal adapters will require a Java 17 Java Runtime Environment (JRE) or Java Developer Kit (JDK). Java 17 is the minimum required version to run Tidal Automation.