Scope

• The Agent Batch Installer provides a solution:
  • for deploying JobScheduler Universal Agents,
  • which allows the installation or update of any number of Agents on multiple servers. 
• The Agent Batch Installer is used for deploying Agents on Unix systems. It is not available for Windows systems for the following reasons:
  
  • The JobScheduler Master transfers the files needed for deployment to the Agent servers using SSH:
    
    • Windows standard installations do not come with an SSH client. This means that additional software would have to be installed on every Agent server just for performing the file transfer.
    • Note that this only applies for the Agent servers. JobScheduler Master can run on a Windows machine and deploy the Agents on UNIX servers.
  • Most Windows administrators work already with other more complex tools to deploy software on Windows machines (deployment tools such as SSCM), whereas for Unix the deployment tools are not that complex and it makes sense to offer such a tool for them.
• The Agent Batch Installer solution can be downloaded from http://www.sos-berlin.com/jobscheduler-downloads under "Universal Agent Batch Installer". Although it is listed in the JobScheduler Universal Agent Unix section, it can be used if the JobScheduler Master is running on a Windows machine. 

Use Cases

The following articles describe a number of use cases regarding the installation and update of JobScheduler Agents and how to use the Agent Batch Installer solution in each case:

• Batch Installation - Use Cases - Homogeneous environment: We define a homogeneous environment as one in which a number of JobScheduler Agents will be installed according to the same prerequisites:
  • A JobScheduler Master is up and running.
  • The Agent installations are to be performed on any number of servers that have the same operating system. One Agent is to be installed per server.
  • The Agents will be operated with the same user, listening port and installation path.
• Batch Installation - Use Cases - Heterogeneous environment: We define a heterogeneous environment as one in which a number of JobScheduler Agents will be installed according to different prerequisites:
  • A JobScheduler Master is up and running.
  • The Agent installations are to be performed on any number of servers that are not required to have the same operating system. One Agent is to be installed per server.
  • The Agents will be operated with different accounts, listening ports and installation paths.
• Batch Installation - Use Cases - Multiple Instances: A number of JobScheduler Agents will be installed on each server and each installation will be based on different prerequisites:
  • A JobScheduler Master is up and running.
  • The Agent installations are to be performed on any number of servers that are not required to have the same operating system. More than one Agent is to be installed per server.
  • On every Agent server the Agents will be operated with different accounts and different listening ports.
    • The Agents will be operated with different accounts (within the same Agent server) to make the example more multifaceted, although the same user can operate more than one Agent if the Agents run on different ports.
  • The installation path will be the same for all Agent installations.

• Batch Installation - Use Cases - Reuse of Batch Installer Configuration Files: Installing JobScheduler Agents in an environment in which a number of the Agents have already been installed and where the new Agents are to be installed on a server which already has at least one Agent. The environment can be summarized as having the following characteristics:
  • A JobScheduler Master is up and running.
  • A number of JobScheduler Agents have already been installed on different Agent servers.
    • At least one additional Agent is to be installed on a server which already has an Agent installed on it.
    • The additional Agent installation will overwrite the previous Agent installation.
  • The new Agent(s) will be operated with the same account and installation path as at least one of the Agents already installed on an Agent server.
    The new Agent will be identified by its listening port which will be unique for the server which the Agent is being installed on.

Reference Documentation

For detailed information about:

• the jobs, job parameters and job chains used for the Agent Batch Installer
• customizing the jobs, job chains and the configuration files needed for the Agent Batch Installer to work

Please refer to the article Batch Installation - Reference Documentation.