Gulliver's travels in WA: what really happened when he was shipwrecked in the sea of information11/5/2018  There is an enormous amount of Workload Automation Information: it originates from varying sources, with numerous levels of detail, dispersed across product guides, technotes and websites. Information overload makes it difficult when you are trying to find the right piece of Workload Automation information when you need it. Everyone knows the story of Gulliver’s Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, but I’m pretty sure that no one told you what really happened when he was marooned in the sea of information about Workload Automation. Indeed, once upon a time, a few years after his most famous travels, he decided to set sail again to appease his insatiable thirst for knowledge. Workload Automation Welcome island At the time of sailing, he had never heard of Workload Automation, but upon arriving on the Workload Automation Welcome island, he discovered that there was an entire world of resources devoted to those who are new to Workload Automation.  He could choose from overview information on IBM Marketplace or from the HCL Products and Platforms Workload Automation page. He could request a free trial from IBM to get first-hand experience with the product or a demo from HCL through the Products and Platforms product demo portal. There was also the chance to read about all of the new features and enhancements from IBM or HCL Summary of enhancements or in the IBM or HCL What’s new page. Finally, there was very useful hands-on information and resources in the Workload Automation Community provided by Workload Automation developers, architects, and test engineers, as well as high skilled professionals, our customers, and some How-to tutorials and demos on the Workload Automation YouTube channel. First installation island Gulliver was really surprised about how powerful this Workload Automation was and he wanted to know more so he decided he would start using it to see for himself. He sailed off to the First installation island. On this island, he learned how to run a dynamic software product compatibility report for up-to-date details on hardware and software requirements by version or component, by simply selecting the required information and clicking on “create a report” in the column that begins with “select a product”. He then searched for “workload scheduler”, and chose the desired product and version, together with some filters about Operating Systems and Product components. Voilà, a dynamic report was generated instantly with all the information he needed and he could regenerate this report again and again over time to always get the most updated information. Before installing, he checked carefully the documentation about the System Requirements for both the engine and the Dynamic Workload Console and late-breaking information about the product in the Release Notes for engine and Dynamic Workload Console. In HCL all of the requirements are directly available in one place. When he was ready to get started with the installation, he checked the IBM Download documents for information about the packages he needs to download for the engine and for the Dynamic Workload Console. He can switch to each supported platform from the hyperlink tabs. HCL provides information about the packages to download on the HCL License Portal, access to which is granted after you have placed your order. WA Knowledge island After successfully performing his first Workload Automation installation, he set sail again looking for more Workload Automation treasures. He then discovered Knowledge island, an enormous island with a wealth of knowledge. The center of the island was the Knowledge Center Welcome page, home for all IBM product documentation. He needed a bit of help to find the right information here. The knowledge center help provided him with useful hints on how to navigate this portal. From that page, he was able to access the pages dedicated to each product and version: IBM Workload Scheduler, IBM Workload Scheduler for z/OS. Each one has its own starting point. With the drop-down list, he was also able to select the exact version of the product he installed. Each product version contains a number of information units, available both in pdf version and in html. Some of them are:
It’s also possible to get notified about important technical news (flashes, technotes, whitepapers) by setting up a subscription in the My Notifications service. On the HCL side, the documentation is younger than the IBM one but the information structure is almost the same. In addition, HCL Workload Automation is available also on Amazon Web Services (AWS). More details are available on the HCL WA product page. Troubleshooting and support island Unfortunately, something went wrong (sooner or later something always does), and he sailed again to find someone who can help him on the troubleshooting and support island. As a first attempt, he checked the Troubleshooting Guide for known problems and the Release notes for documented software limitations and late-breaking information about the product engine and Dynamic Workload Console. Another great source of information and knowledge among developers is the Stack Overflow community where he found a lot of Q&A about Workload Automation. He could quickly locate questions through the tag “workload scheduler” or “Tivoli workload scheduler”. Even the Workload Automation development team contributes to this trusted online community. Our developers’ contribution can also be found in several helpful forums: IWS forum on DeveloperWorks, IWA on Cloud forum, HCL WA Forum, Transparent Development Forum and the Customer Collaboration Program for the Workload Automation. All of these forums are monitored by Workload Automation experts who contribute together with Workload Automation customers ready to share their knowledge and experiences. Finally, when he had problems that he couldn’t address in the forums and needed to address them through the official product support path, he began at the TWS Support Landing Page or from the IBM Workload Scheduler Support Portal, or the HCL Products and Platforms Support page. Upgrade island Once the issue was resolved, he found out that a new version was available and decided to sail toward the upgrade island. He started with the upgrade chapter in the Planning and Installation Guide. He learned that he could find the complete repository of fix packs available for each release on IBM Fix Central. It was so easy to search for the fixes, even for the recommended ones, by selecting the product, version and platform already installed. He also found out that the General Availability and End of Support Dates were available in the Software lifecycle page for IWS. This helped him a lot in planning the upgrade. RFE island Gulliver was so happy with this trip, but he still felt that something was missing. Someone told him that there was an island that offered the opportunity to collaborate directly with the product development team and other users. The team prioritizes and develops new product features based on proposals made by customers. This was the Requests for Enhancements island. Back home At this point of his travel, he was really happy of how his entire workload was running. Everything was automated so he had nothing more to do and decided to return to England. Once he was home, he found out that there was a whole world of people working with Workload Automation, talking about it and helping each other to draw successful stories. There were a lot of interesting scenarios, implementation details in the HCL Blogs or in the IBM Middleware User Community. Also, the runtws blog provided a lot of Workload Scheduler Best Practices. It was possible to discuss and collaborate with other users and the development team and ask questions in the already mentioned forums or to comment features at the foot of every topic in IBM Knowledge Center. Finally, the HCL Workload Automation group on LinkedIn and the Workload Automation twitter page provide a whole world of news and updates on workload automation, without the need to sail again!
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