Question

I would like to run a background task on some interval from a web application I have deployed on Websphere 6.1 clustered environment. The task will access a database, send emails, and write to the database.

I was thinking about kicking off a thread when the web app is first loaded, as suggested here: Background Thread for a Tomcat servlet app.

Since it is a clustered environment, what would be the best way to NOT have task run on each individual node of the cluster?

Answer 1

Have a look at the WAS Scheduler service.

It says of clustered environments:

Scheduler daemons in a cluster

When multiple schedulers are
configured to use the same tables (as
is the case in a clustered
environment), any of the daemons can
find a task and set the alarm in its
Java virtual machine (JVM). The task
is executed in the virtual machine
where the scheduler daemon first runs,
until the daemon is stopped and
another daemon starts. If an
application on server1 schedules a
task to run and server2 was started
before server1, then the task runs on
server2.