Best practice to authorize and log schedule changes in ESP

Products

• ESP Workload Automation

Issue/Introduction

Need recommendation to ensure that schedule changes made in ESP Workload Automation system are authorized and logged. Some options may include:

- Separation of schedule change approvals and implementations.
- Logging of schedule changes
- Alerts when the schedule is changed

Environment

Component: ESP Workload Automation
Release: ALL

Resolution

Here are the guidelines we recommend:
#1 Schedule changes should be validated by the users in the application team and/or scheduling team.
Note: critical/complex changes should involve Production Control people to review. And commonly used ESP method for validation:
Run SIMULATE after the change and make sure it works as expected.

The following methods can help to monitor the changes:
1. Set proper ESP security profile to prevent unauthorized users from changing the events, and non-ESP security on the library where ESP procs are stored can prevent users from changing the ESP Procedures;
2. Command “L LEVEL(-) LASTUPD” can be used to check when the events were changed;
3. ESP6099I indicates that the event has been updated, it can be monitored by the console tool.

#2 Change management product (like ENDEVOR) is normally used to manage the change. For production change, approvers are normally the Change management group, Application development, and Production Control. In some cases, this may be more than 3 people. In some cases, the changes should be done in a test environment and then moved to production.