Prevent and solve queuing issues in Tivoli Workload Scheduler

In this article I've talked about Tivoli Workload Scheduler message queues and how they work as input queue for TWS processes.
In large and busy environment these message files can start growing creating delay issues.

I've just published with Paolo Salerno a new article on developerworks about monitoring message files, detect issues and a new feature introduced with 9.2 FP1 that allows TWS administrators to  prevent and solve delays issues monitoring how much of the mailman capacity is used and which workstation should be moved under a mailman server to have a more reliable environment.

The article is available here: http://bit.ly/wablog-mailman-queues

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Message flow and processes on FTAs and classic E2E

I've received a request from a customer for information about the flow of messages (events) in Tivoli Workload Scheduler for z/OS classic End-to-End.
With messages I'm referring to the information exchanged between TWS agents and servers in order to start and track job execution, submit new workload, modify existing workload, etc..
I'll not use the word event, that is sometime used in this context, to avoid confusion with the events of Event Driven Workload Automation (EDWA).

This is a very specific and technical topic, however understanding this flow was the first think I made when I started working on the TWSd code to start the porting on z/OS and integration with TWSz (OPC at that time) to make first release of the classic E2E. It was the year 2000 and TWS development was still in Santa Clara, while OPC was already here in Rome. I started creating the diagrams that I'll use in this article and they was on the wall in front of me for several months.
Even if this information is also available in the manuals, I think it could be useful to have this information also on this blog.

The picture above represents the basic message flows for a Fault Tolerant Agent (FTA).