A New Approach for Monitoring ESP Workload Automation

Are you looking for a more modern and easy way to monitor your automated workflows? The ESP Web UI may just be what you need.

Evolution

Broadcom’s ESP Workload Automation, having been around for over two decades, has a few choices when it comes to monitoring scheduled applications. ISPF is a great interface for mainframe experts who interact with multiple products and prefer a centralized place to access them with a common look and feel. ESP Workstation is ideal for those preferring an interface on their desktops and looks similar to other Windows platform applications. The ESP Intelligent Experience (IX) is yet another choice for those desiring a browser-based application. Each interface has its pros and cons. Still, could there be an even better option?

Without going into too many details, I’ll just say the IX interface is the most limiting. Although you’re able to monitor applications and jobs, it lacks some capabilities when it comes to supporting tasks like adjusting workflows or troubleshooting problematic work. Both ISPF, via the Consolidated Status Facility (CSF), and ESP Workstation provide robust monitoring capabilities and more. ISPF appeals to long-time mainframers, but others tend to view it as cryptic and intimidating. ESP Workstation generally appeals to those less familiar with ISPF and the mainframe in general, but because it requires desktop deployment it’s not ideal from an infrastructure management perspective.

Creating a Better Solution

The solution most requested by our customers ideally provides robust capabilities intuitively and is centrally managed. This is exactly what the ESP engineering team has created. After working closely with several large customers across diverse industries, organization structures, and varying years of ESP tenure, the team has developed a much more robust, intuitive, browser-based interface known as the ESP Web UI. It builds upon, and ultimately replaces, IX, providing the benefits of centralized administration but with much broader capabilities and a modern intuitive design people expect.

Job Flow and Job Details

Key Capabilities

• Near real-time updates for applications and jobs are automatically displayed based on simple or complex filters that can be shared with colleagues.
• Ability to take full control of events whether it’s triggering, holding/releasing, suspending/resuming, simulating, or even deleting.
• Manage applications whether reviewing a graphical representation of all the jobs or taking actions such as hold/release, unwait, withdraw, complete, and terminate, in addition to searching for jobs and drilling down directly to the job details.
• Managing jobs is generally the most commonly monitored automation object, with jobs corresponding to application tasks. It therefore makes sense that there is a lot of functionality centered around jobs. Besides the ability to take over 15 actions against them (e.g. hold/resume, cancel, resubmit, withdraw), typical troubleshooting features such as the ability to view job definitions/procedures and navigate to jobs with a single click. Additional capabilities include viewing output files from both z/OS and distributed platforms, JCL, and job documentation.
• User-defined custom views capable of bringing both application and job details together in a single window.

The above list is not intended to be comprehensive but simply highlights many of the predominant capabilities customers have requested.

Choosing the Best Solution

Is the new ESP Web UI the ideal solution for everyone’s needs? No. So who are the best candidates to benefit most from it? For those solely responsible for monitoring — whether it’s a subset of applications/jobs or the entire ESP ecosystem — and wanting an alternative to ISPF that is centrally administered and yet intuitive to use…this is ideal. For those whose job includes maintaining applications and jobs, or who find ISPF the most comfortable interface around, this isn’t for you. People want to ultimately simplify their jobs and minimize the number of interfaces they use, and this isn’t ISPF-like. Be patient though — the ESP team is planning to challenge you too! For everyone else, you’ll soon discover just how easy monitoring ESP can really be.

Please see the GA Announcement Letter for more information to begin using the new ESP Web UI today.