JP2008257410A - System design verification device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To efficiently verify design contents of a business information system. <P>SOLUTION: This system design verification device holds job relation information showing a combination of jobs having order relation, job file data, and data relation information showing a related job thereof. When the related job of a job file that is a verification target is a first job and a second job, it is decided whether the order relation between the first job and the second job is required or not from the combination of an access kind of the first job and an access kind of the second job. When the order relation is required, it is confirmed whether or not the order relation is satisfied between the first job and the second job in the job relation information. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a business information system, and more particularly to a technique for verifying the design contents of a business information system.

  Business information systems that support the operation of companies and public facilities, so-called enterprise systems, are now the foundation of organizations of various sizes. The business information system supports complicated organization management by outputting higher value-added information after totaling, accumulating, analyzing and processing data obtained from node terminals and databases.

  A business information system is often modeled as a collection of jobs. A job is a process that is a basic execution unit in the system, such as a database update process and a calculation process for data obtained from each node terminal.

  There is an order relationship between these jobs, in which execution of a job corresponding to the subsequent stage is started after execution of the job corresponding to the previous stage is completed. For example, assume that job 2 and job 3 are executed based on the execution result of job 1. At this time, an order relationship is established between job 1 and job 2, and job 1 and job 3. On the other hand, no order relationship is established between job 2 and job 3.

The business information system is generally 1. 1. Disassemble the entire system into multiple modules according to function. 2. Define processing details and execution conditions for jobs that implement the functions of each module. 3. Implement jobs using programming languages such as JCL (Job Control Language). It is often developed through a process of connecting modules.
JP 2002-358224 A JP 2006-268507 A

  In an implementation in which job 4 is read and executed from file A after job 3 writes data to file A, an order relationship must be established between job 3 and job 4. . If the order relationship is not established, the job 4 may be executed based on old data before the job 3 writes to the file A. If the job 3 is designed so that completion of execution of the job 3 becomes an execution condition of the job 4, occurrence of such a problem can be prevented in advance. However, if the execution condition is not set for job 4, as a result, the operation of the business information system becomes unstable.

  As described above, in order to operate the business information system stably, it is necessary to verify whether the order relationship defined in the design and the order relationship required for operation are consistent after the design of the business information system. is there. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to grasp the execution conditions of all jobs due to the complexity and scale of business information systems.

  The present invention has been completed based on the above-mentioned problems, and its main object is to provide a technique for efficiently verifying the design contents of a business information system.

One embodiment of the present invention relates to a system design verification apparatus.
This apparatus acquires job relationship information indicating a combination of jobs having an order relationship and data relationship information indicating a related job for each of a plurality of types of intermediate data.
This apparatus sequentially selects intermediate data to be verified with reference to the data relation information, and when the related jobs of the intermediate data to be verified are the first job and the second job, the intermediate data to be verified The necessity of the order relationship between the first job and the second job is determined from the combination of the access type of the first job and the access type of the second job for the data, and if the order relationship is necessary, the job It is confirmed in the relationship information whether an order relationship is established between the first job and the second job. Thereby, the consistency between the job relation information and the data relation information is determined.

  It should be noted that any combination of the above-described components, and the present invention expressed by a method, system, recording medium, and computer program are also effective as an aspect of the present invention.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to reduce the work load required to verify the design contents of the business information system.

FIG. 1 is a hardware configuration diagram of the business information system 220.
The business information system 220 is a system introduced for business management of organizations such as companies and public facilities. The business information system 220 may be configured as a system that integrates a plurality of geographically dispersed organizations.

The business information system 220 in this embodiment includes a job management device 230, a job execution device group 200, and an external storage device 210.
The job management device 230 causes the job execution device group 200 to execute a plurality of jobs based on the execution conditions set for each job. The job execution device group 200 includes a plurality of job execution devices 202. Each job execution device 202 executes the job assigned from the job management device 230. The job management device 230 may assign a job to any job execution device 202 in accordance with a predetermined assignment rule. Alternatively, jobs may be preferentially assigned to the job execution devices 202 that have a lighter processing load than the other job execution devices 202 so that the processing load of each job execution device 202 is distributed.
Program data for job execution may be held in advance by the job execution apparatus 202. Alternatively, program data may be downloaded from the job management apparatus 230 to the job execution apparatus 202 when a job execution instruction is issued. The job execution device 202 notifies the job management device 230 of the job execution state.

  The external storage device 210 stores various business data. The job execution device 202 sends and receives data to and from the external storage device 210 when executing a job. Further, the job execution device 202 executes a job based on data acquired from the external storage device 210 or data acquired from a database (not shown).

In summary, the job execution device 202 executes various jobs using the data in the external storage device 210 as a variable. The job management device 230 controls job execution timing based on the execution conditions of each job. As described above, the entire business information system 220 is operated by periodically executing a plurality of jobs based on data obtained from the external storage device 210.
The job management device 230, the job execution device group 200, and the external storage device 210 are connected to each other via a communication network.

  The job executes “write (WR)” and “read (RD)” for various files during execution. Hereinafter, a file to be accessed by a job is referred to as a “job file”. The system design verification apparatus 100 verifies whether the order relationship required for operation matches the order relationship defined in the design by comparing the access type for the job file and the execution condition of each job. It is a device for.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing execution conditions for a plurality of jobs in a directed graph format.
Here, the order relationship between jobs 1 to 7 is shown in a directed graph format. Job 1 and job 3 can be executed without depending on the execution state of other jobs. On the other hand, the execution condition of job 2 is completion of execution of job 1 (hereinafter, simply referred to as “execution completion” means “normal execution completion”). The execution condition of job 4 is completion of execution of both job 1 and job 3. Job 2 cannot be executed unless execution of job 1 is completed, but does not depend on the execution status of job 3 or job 4. That is, an order relationship is established between job 1 and job 2, job 1 and job 4, job 3 and job 4, but an order relationship is established between job 2 and job 3, and job 2 and job 4. Not established. The order relationship is set in the same manner among other jobs.

  Jobs access various job files. Note that the data to be accessed by the job does not necessarily have to be file format data, and may be an “object” developed on a memory in an object-oriented language. In the present embodiment, description will be made assuming that all data to be accessed by a job is filed as a job file.

  Job 1 may write the processing result to a certain job file A, and job 2 may read the processing result of job 1 from this job file A and execute its own processing. Furthermore, job 2 may write the processing result to another job file B. A job passes data to another job via a job file. The job file may be displayed on the screen of an external terminal or stored in a database (not shown).

  Hereinafter, job 2 having “job 1 execution completed” as an execution condition is referred to as “child job” of job 1. Job 1 is also referred to as “parent job” of job 2. In the case of FIG. 4, job 4 is a child job of job 1 and job 3. Job 1 is a parent job of job 2 and job 4. Job 5 is a child job of job 4 directly and indirectly a child job of job 1 or job 3. Hereinafter, a direct child job for a certain job, such as job 5 for job 4, is referred to as a “narrow child job”. When an indirect child job for a certain job is included, such as job 5 for job 1 or job 3, it is called a “broad child job”. In this specification, unless otherwise specified, the term “child job” simply refers to a “broad child job”.

The job management device 230 causes the job execution device 202 to execute executable jobs one after another while determining job execution conditions. In this way, processing as the entire business information system 220 is executed.
The following description is based on the seven jobs shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram of the system design verification apparatus 100.
Each block shown here can be realized in hardware by an element such as a CPU of a computer or a mechanical device, and in software it is realized by a computer program or the like. Draw functional blocks. Therefore, those skilled in the art will understand that these functional blocks can be realized in various forms by a combination of hardware and software.
Here, functions to be exhibited by each functional block will be mainly described, and specific actions will be described with reference to FIG.

The system design verification device 100 includes a user interface processing unit 110, a data processing unit 120, and a data storage unit 130.
The user interface processing unit 110 is in charge of processing related to the entire user interface such as input processing from the user and information display for the user.
The data processing unit 120 executes various data processing based on the data acquired from the user interface processing unit 110. The data processing unit 120 also serves as an interface between the user interface processing unit 110 and the data storage unit 130.
The data storage unit 130 stores various setting data prepared in advance and data received from the data processing unit 120.

  The user interface processing unit 110 includes an input unit 112 and a display unit 114. The input unit 112 receives an input operation from the user. Also, “job relation information” indicating the order relation of jobs defined as a design, and “data relation information” indicating a job access type to the job file are acquired. Both will be described later. The access type in this embodiment is either “write” or “read”. “Generation” of a job file may be included as a kind of “write”. The display unit 114 displays various information to the user.

The data storage unit 130 includes a job relation information holding unit 132, a data relation information holding unit 134, and an order rule holding unit 136.
The job relation information holding unit 132 holds job relation information. The job related information indicates an order relationship according to the execution conditions of a plurality of jobs. The system developer defines job-related information at the system design stage. The data structure of the job relation information will be described in detail with reference to FIG.
The data relation information holding unit 134 holds data relation information. The data relation information is information indicating a job accessing the job file and its access type. Hereinafter, a job that accesses a certain job file A is referred to as a “related job” of the job file A. The data structure of the data related information will be described in detail with reference to FIG.
The order rule holding unit 136 holds order rule information. The order rule information indicates a rule for determining whether or not the job order relation is necessary from the data relation information. The order rule information will be described in detail with reference to FIG.

The data processing unit 120 includes an order necessity determination unit 122 and a consistency determination unit 124.
The order necessity determination unit 122 refers to the data relationship information and the order rule information to determine whether an order relationship is necessary between a certain job and another job. The consistency determination unit 124 determines whether or not the order relationship is set in the job relationship information for the two jobs determined to require the order relationship by the order necessity determination unit 122.

FIG. 4 is a data structure diagram of the job relation information 140.
The job relation information 140 in FIG. 4 corresponds to the jobs 1 to 7 shown in FIG. Between the first job and the second job associated in the first job column 142 and the second job column 144, an order relationship is established in which one becomes the other child job.

According to the system design diagram of FIG. 2, job 2 is a child job of job 1 and is associated in job relation information 140. On the other hand, job 1 and job 3 are not associated with each other because there is no order relationship. In the form of expression “child job in the narrow sense ← parent job”, the system design diagram of FIG.
Job 2 ← Job 1
Job 4 ← Job 1, Job 3
Job 5 ← Job 4
Job 6 ← Job 4
Job 7 ← Job 6
It becomes. The job relationship information 140 in FIG. 4 schematically shows the relationship between the parent job and the child job. As described above, the job relation information 140 is information indicating the order relation of jobs in the design stage. Further, by searching the job relationship information 140 in a graph, for example, job 7 ← job 6 ← job 4, it can be seen that a broad parent-child relationship is established between job 7 and job 4.

FIG. 5 is a data structure diagram of the data relation information 150.
The system developer defines the job relation information 140 of FIG. 4 from the system design diagram of FIG. 2 and implements a job control program in which the processing contents of each job are described based on the job relation information 140. The data relation information 150 indicates the job file, the related job, and the access type of the related job. The data relation information 150 is information obtained by analyzing the mounting contents of each job in the job control program.

According to the data relationship information 150, there are seven types of job files accessed from seven jobs, job 1 to job 7, from job file 1 to job file 7. In the implementation, the job 1 executes a writing process to the job file 1. In the figure, “WR” is indicated. Job 2 and job 4 both read data from job file 1. In the figure, “RD” is indicated. In other words, when the job control program after mounting is analyzed, it can be seen that there are three related jobs of the job file 1, “job 1”, “job 2”, and “job 3”.
The access types for job file 1 are job 1: write, job 2: read, and job 4: read. As described above, the data relationship information 150 is information indicating the relationship between the job and the job file at the mounting stage.

FIG. 6 is a data structure diagram of the order rule information 160.
The order necessity determination unit 122 refers to the data relationship information 150 and determines whether an order relationship is necessary between a certain job and another job. The order rule information 160 indicates a criterion for that purpose. Although details will be described in detail with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 7, the order necessity determination unit 122 sequentially selects job files to be verified from a plurality of job files. Next, the related job of the selected job file is specified with reference to the data relationship information 150. When there are two or more related jobs, two jobs to be verified are selected from the related jobs. Then, based on the access type and order rule information 160, it is determined whether or not an order relationship needs to be established between the two jobs.

As an example, when job file A is selected as a verification target, and among the related jobs, a job to be verified is a first job and a second job, the determination condition is
A: When one of the first job and the second job executes a write to the job file A and the other executes a read to the job file A: an order relationship is required B: the first job and the second job When one of the jobs executes a write to job file A and the other also executes a write to job file A: an order relationship is required C: one of the first job and the second job is a job file When a read is executed for A and the other is also read for job file A: the order relationship is unnecessary.

The reason for the determination condition is as follows.
A: It is assumed that the first job executes writing to the job file A, and the second job executes reading from the job file A. In this case, the processing content of the second job varies depending on the execution completion timing of the first job and the execution start timing of the second job. When execution of the second job is started after completion of execution of the first job, the second job executes processing based on the processing result of the first job. However, when execution of the second job is started before execution of the first job is completed, the second job executes processing based on old data before the processing result of the first job is written or data being written. Will do. For this reason, the operation of the business information system 220 may become unstable.
Therefore, between the first job and the second job having such a relationship with respect to the job file A, the execution condition that the execution of the other is started on the condition of completion of the execution of the other, in other words, the order relation is designed. Must be defined.

B: Assume that the first job executes writing to job file A and the second job also executes writing to job file A. In this case, the contents of the job file A change depending on the execution start / completion timing of the first job and the execution start / completion timing of the second job. When writing by the second job is executed after writing by the first job, the processing result of the second job is finally recorded in the job file A. If the execution order is reversed, the processing result of the first job is finally recorded in the job file A. For this reason, the output of the business information system 220 may become unstable.
Therefore, between the first job and the second job having such a relationship with respect to the job file A, the execution condition that the execution of the other is started on the condition of completion of the execution of the other, in other words, the order relation is designed. Must be defined.

C: Suppose that the first job executes reading to job file A, and the second job also executes reading to job file A. In this case, the content of the job file A does not change regardless of which of the second job and the first job is read to the job file A first, and the processing contents of the first job and the second job are not affected. I do not receive it.
Therefore, the order relationship does not necessarily hold between the first job and the second job having such a relationship with respect to the job file A.

  Note that the access type of a related job that executes both writing and reading with respect to the job file A is handled as “write”. As described above, the order relation is required when any related job executes writing to a job file.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the process of system design verification.
Regarding job 1 to job 7 and job file 1 to job file 7 shown in the above example, based on job relation information 140, data relation information 150 and order rule information 160, the order relation defined by design and necessary for operation The process of consistency verification for determining consistency with the ordered relationship will be described.

  First, the order necessity determination unit 122 selects one job file to be verified from the job files 1 to 7 indicated in the data relationship information 150 (S10). Next, the order necessity determination unit 122 refers to the data relationship information 150 and selects two related jobs (S12). However, when two or more related jobs do not exist, another job file is selected in S10.

The order necessity determination unit 122 refers to the order rule information 160 and determines whether an order relationship is necessary between the two selected related jobs (S14).
For example, according to the data relationship information 150 of FIG. 5, in the case of job 1 and job 2 that are related jobs of job file 1, job 1 is in a write relationship and job 2 is in a read relationship (the relationship of A above). Therefore, it is determined that an order relationship is necessary between job 1 and job 2.
On the other hand, in the case of job 2 and job 3, which are related jobs of job file 1, both job 2 and job 3 are in a read relationship (the relationship of C above). Therefore, no order relationship is required between job 2 and job 3.
In the case of job 2 and job 4, which are related jobs of file 4, both are in a writing relationship (the relationship of B above). An order relationship is required between job 2 and job 4.

  If the order relationship is not necessary (N in S14), the process proceeds to S22. If an order relationship is necessary (Y in S14), the consistency determination unit 124 refers to the job relationship information 140 and has the design relationship defined between the two related jobs selected in S12? Determine (S16). If the order relationship is not defined (N in S18), the names of these two related jobs and the corresponding job file are recorded in the error file (S20).

  As an example, job 2 and job 4, which are related jobs of job file 4, are in a writing relationship and need an order relationship. However, according to job relationship information 140, an order relationship is present between job 2 and job 4. Is not defined. For this reason, the operations of job 2 and job 4 may become unstable in connection with access to job file 4. In addition, the job 2 and the job 6, which are related jobs of the job file 6, need to be in order because the job 2 reads and the job 6 has a writing relationship. However, according to the job relation information 140, no order relation is defined between the job 2 and the job 6.

  If verification of all job combinations has not been completed for the related job group of the job file selected in S10 (Y in S22), the process returns to S12, and a new job combination to be verified is found. Selected (S12). For example, since the related jobs of job file 1 are job 1, job 2, and job 4, the job combinations to be verified are (job 1, job 2), (job 1, job 4) and (job 2, job 4). ). Further, since the related jobs of the job file 4 are job 2, job 4, job 5, and job 6, the job combinations to be verified are (job 2, job 4), (job 2, job 5), (job 2). , Job 6), (job 4, job 5), (job 4, job 6), and (job 5, job 6) in total.

  When the combination of all related jobs is verified (N in S22), the order necessity determination unit 122 determines whether there is a job file that has not been verified yet (S24). If an unverified job file exists, the process returns to S10, and the order necessity determination unit 122 selects a new job file (S10). When the verification for all job files is completed (N in S24), the process ends.

The system design verification apparatus 100 has been described based on the embodiments.
According to the system design verification apparatus 100, it is possible to verify the consistency between the order relationship of jobs defined at the time of design and the order relationship of jobs whose necessity is recognized from the implementation. In particular, control of the timing for passing data from job to job tends to be a hotbed for system errors. Even if the number of jobs included in the business information system increases in the future, the system design verification apparatus 100 can provide a mechanism for efficiently detecting vulnerable parts of the system.

  In the above, this invention was demonstrated based on the Example. The embodiments are exemplifications, and it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various modifications can be made to combinations of the respective constituent elements and processing processes, and such modifications are within the scope of the present invention. .

The “intermediate data” recited in the claims is expressed as a “job file” in the present embodiment.
In addition, it should be understood by those skilled in the art that the functions to be fulfilled by the constituent elements described in the claims are realized by the individual functional blocks shown in the present embodiment or their linkage. .

It is a hardware block diagram of a business information system. It is a figure which shows the execution conditions of a some job in a directed graph format. It is a functional block diagram of a system design verification apparatus. It is a data structure figure of job relation information. It is a data structure figure of data relation information. It is a data structure figure of order rule information. It is a flowchart which shows the process for verifying system design.

Explanation of symbols

  100 system design verification device, 110 user interface processing unit, 112 input unit, 114 display unit, 120 data processing unit, 122 order necessity determination unit, 124 consistency determination unit, 130 data storage unit, 132 job relation information holding unit, 134 Data relation information holding section, 136 Order rule holding section, 140 Job relation information, 142 First job field, 144 Second job field, 146 Order relation field, 150 Data relation information, 160 Order rule information, 200 Job execution device group, 202 Job execution device, 210 External storage device, 220 Business information system, 230 Job management device.

Claims (5)

A job relation information acquisition unit for acquiring job relation information indicating a combination of jobs in an order relation in which a job corresponding to the subsequent stage is executed on the condition that the execution of the job corresponding to the previous stage is completed among a plurality of jobs;
Data relation information for acquiring data relation information indicating a related job for each of a plurality of types of intermediate data, with a job for executing writing to intermediate data and a job for executing reading from the intermediate data being related jobs of the intermediate data An acquisition unit;
When the intermediate data to be verified is sequentially selected with reference to the data relation information, and the related jobs of the intermediate data to be verified are the first job and the second job, the intermediate data to be verified An order necessity determining unit that determines whether or not an order relationship between the first job and the second job is necessary from a combination of the access type of the first job and the access type of the second job for
When it is determined that an order relationship is necessary between the first job and the second job, is the order relationship established between the first job and the second job in the job relationship information? A consistency determination unit that determines consistency between the job relationship information and the data relationship information,
A system design verification apparatus comprising:   When the first job executes writing to the intermediate data to be verified and the second job executes reading to the intermediate data to be verified, the order necessity determination unit The system design verification apparatus according to claim 1, wherein it is determined that an order relationship is necessary between the job and the second job.   The order necessity determination unit determines the order between the first job and the second job when both the first job and the second job execute writing to the intermediate data to be verified. The system design verification apparatus according to claim 1, wherein it is determined that a relationship is necessary.   The order necessity determination unit is configured to execute an order between the first job and the second job when both the first job and the second job execute reading of the intermediate data to be verified. The system design verification apparatus according to claim 1, wherein it is determined that the relationship is unnecessary. A function of holding job relation information indicating a combination of jobs in an order relation in which a job corresponding to the subsequent stage is executed on condition that the execution of the job corresponding to the preceding stage is completed among a plurality of jobs,
A function for holding data relation information indicating a related job for each of a plurality of types of intermediate data, with a job for executing writing to intermediate data and a job for executing reading from the intermediate data as related jobs for the intermediate data,
A function of sequentially selecting intermediate data to be verified with reference to the data relation information;
When the related jobs of the intermediate data to be verified are the first job and the second job, the access type of the first job and the access type of the second job for the intermediate data to be verified A function for determining the necessity of an order relationship between the first job and the second job from a combination;
If it is determined that an order relationship is necessary between the first job and the second job, is the order relationship established between the first job and the second job in the job relationship information? By determining the consistency between the job relationship information and the data relationship information,
A system design verification program characterized by causing a computer to demonstrate its functions.

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