As we have seen previously, a project is a single-use object that allows you to group jobs. A project is the highest level of organization offered by SAP Data Services. When a project is opened, one group of jobs is accessible in the user interface. Projects are stored in the Local Object Library and only one project can be opened at a time.
A project is used solely for organizational purposes, for example to group jobs that have schedules that depend on one another or to group jobs that you want to monitor together.
A job is the only executable object in Data Services. When developing data flows, you can manually execute and test jobs directly in Data Services. In production, you can schedule batch jobs and set up real-time jobs as services that execute a process when Data Services receives a message request.
Job Execution
- A job is a schedulable object.
- If executed in Designer, a job is always executed immediately.
- Execution can be scheduled in the Data Services Management Console or by a third-party scheduler.
- The steps of a job are executed together.
A job is made up of steps that are executed together. Each step is represented by an object icon that you place in the workspace to create a job diagram. A job diagram is made up of two or more objects connected together.
Process Orchestration
When you connect objects in a job, you determine the order in which Data Services performs operations. The next operation will then only start if the previous step has successfully completed. For example, in the previous figure, the data flow only executes if the script completes successfully.
Leave the objects unconnected when you want the objects to run in parallel processes.
If a job is complex, organize its content into individual work flows and create a single job that calls the work flows.
The objects in a work flow have the same behavior as objects in a job:
- If objects are connected, they will execute one after the other, when successful.
- If objects are not connected, they will execute in parallel.
Hint
Follow the recommended naming conventions for consistent object identification across all systems in your enterprise.