How Are Jobs Submitted To The Argent Queue Engine?
The Argent Queue Engine supervises the running of a job instance, or an external job. The term “external job” is a job submitted to an Argent Queue Engine from other than the Argent Scheduler.
The Argent Scheduler is just one of a number of ways jobs can be submitted to the Argent Queue Engine. While the most obvious, it is by no means the only way.
A job can be submitted to the Argent Queue Engine by any one of the following.
Command Line
The Argent Queue Engine has a complete repertory of batch commands that can be explicitly executed from the command line, or from within a command file.
It is possible to run all aspects of one or more Argent Queue Engines by using these commands. In fact, one of Europe’s largest banks does just this – this FT-100 bank runs over 70 production Argent Queue Engines using just the command-line commands – the Argent Scheduler is not used at all. And this bank’s average daily processing exceeds 2,000 production jobs per day, peaking with end-of-quarter processing approaching 3,700 production jobs.
API
The Argent Queue Engine has a complete and documented Application Programmer Interface (API) that can be used by all common programming languages such as VB, C, CPP, C#, and .NET.
This API enables existing homegrown applications to leverage the power and stability of the Argent Queue Engine. A large financial institution based in Chicago does just this. Its homegrown scheduler, cum CRM, cum billing system, cum coffee maker (it is very arcane) was written over 15 years and its tentacles are tied to many aspects of the company’s operation. In this case, 40 Argent Queue Engines are accessed via the Argent API.
The API is extremely stable. Why? The Argent Scheduler uses the API itself for all communications to the Argent Queue Engines.
While using a home-grown scheduling facility instead of the Argent Scheduler is often of dubious value, sometimes it cannot be avoided, because of historical or political reasons.
.Net User Controls
The Argent Queue Engine has a complete and documented .Net layer enabling .Net applications to directly manage all aspects of jobs running on Argent Queue Engines.
The Argent Queue Engine GUI And Web Interfaces
Jobs can be explicitly created and submitted to the Argent Queue Engine via the Argent Queue Engine’s own GUI or the Argent Queue Engine web interface.
The Argent Scheduler
Last, but by no means least, is the most obvious, namely the Argent Scheduler. This is the most obvious means as the Argent Scheduler is installed with the Argent Queue Engine, but, as can be seen from the above alternatives, the Argent Scheduler is by no means the only way to submit jobs to the Argent Queue Engine.