Scott Chapman American Electric Power

Paper 9015
Session 331

Agenda
What I mean by critical path

My simple way of finding it

Review some sample code
Questions

Bonus Material

Geek-required xkcd reference

HTTP://XKCD.COM/399/

Critical path
Simple definition: how long is this going
to take?
Longest sequence of activities

In a project
In a batch schedule

Need to look at:

Predecessor-successor relationships
Durations

Time dependencies

Ideas originated in Project Management

Project Management History

Critical Path Method (CPM) originated at DuPont

in 1950s
Used to manage chemical plant maintenance
projects
Critical path is the sequence of events which
determines the duration of the project
Delays in tasks on the CP delay the entire
project
CP must be managed to stay on schedule
To finish project earlier, tasks on CP must be
somehow shortened

CPM process
Identify activities
Identify sequence and dependencies

Draw network diagram of activities

Estimate duration of activities
Identify the longest path in the network

(critical path)
Monitor & update as project progresses
Delays in tasks not on CP may change
the CP!

Batch Windows & CP

Business runs on cycles
Daily, weekly, monthly processes
Large applications have large batch

schedules
Batch schedules can be drawn as a
network diagram
Predecessor Successor
relationships between jobs
Like projects, we like our batch windows
to finish on time!
Like a project, a batch schedule has a CP

CP Calculation
Formally:
CP is path with no slack for any task

Slack = difference between earliest & latest start

or finish time of task
Latest finish = latest time task can finish
without delaying project
And how do you figure that???

Informally:
Find all the paths through the network

diagram
Add up task duration on each path
Select the longest path

Simple example
Task B
Task E

Task A
Task C

Start

Task D

End

Task F

Five paths through this simple example

Simple example
Task B
Task E

Task A
Task C

Start

Task D

End

Task F

Five paths through this simple example

Simple example
Task B
Task E

Task A
Task C

Start

Task D

End

Task F

Five paths through this simple example

Simple example
Task B
Task E

Task A
Task C

Start

Task D

End

Task F

Five paths through this simple example

Simple example
Task B
Task E

Task A
Task C

Start

Task D

End

Task F

Five paths through this simple example

Simple example
Task B
Task E

Task A
Task C

Start

Task D

End

Task F

Five paths through this simple example

Simple example
A+B+E = 45
A+C+E = 40
A+C+F = 35
D+C+E = 55
D+C+F = 50

Task B
Task A
Start

15 mins

20 mins

Task C
15 mins

Task E
10 mins

End

Task D

Task F

30 mins

5 mins

Calculate path durations from task durations

Simple example
A+B+E = 45
A+C+E = 40
A+C+F = 35
D+C+E = 55
D+C+F = 50

Task B
Task A
Start

15 mins

20 mins

Task C
15 mins

Task E
10 mins

End

Task D

Task F

30 mins

5 mins

Calculate path durations from task durations

So thats simple enough!

Everybody ready to leave?

Real world complications

Hundreds or thousands of batch jobs
Managed by a batch scheduler
package
Time-of-day dependencies
Extraneous dependencies
New jobs added without cleaning up obsolete

dependencies

Variable execution times

Variation in data to be processed
Contention with other processes
External waits
Job failures

What that might look like

Winding your way through that mess is a bit more complicated!

Tooling Options

Package from scheduler vendor

+ Should be well integrated
- Cost?

Microsoft Project
- Not really meant for this purpose
+ See CMG Proceedings: Schwarz/Aurand, 1999 and
Zaslavsky, 2001

SAS/OR
- Cost and effort?

Roll your own

+ Can make output exactly what you want
- Time / effort
+ Sample code on your CD!

What is the real question?

1. What is the longest path through the
schedule?
- prediction of the critical path

- usually one-time analysis

2. Why did job X finish late last night?
- an ongoing question / process
- requires the CP for job X
Fortunately, #2 is much easier!

Use what you know

Predecessors
(from batch scheduler)
End times
(from actual executions)

We are answering a question, not

predicting the future
We just need to explain what happened
Look at the jobs in the critical path for job
X for anomalies

Critical path simplified

Start at job X
Find the predecessor that ended last
that was the critical predecessor to X
Call that job W

Find last predecessor of W, call it V

Repeat until:
You go back some number of levels or
You reach a time dependency

Resulting list is the critical path, for

the day under study, for job X

Simple example
Task B
Task A
Start

15 mins
19:15

19:00

20 mins
19:35

Task C
15 mins
19:45

Task E
10 mins
19:55
End

Task D

Task F

30 mins
19:30

5 mins
19:50

Working backwards
E ended last

Task B
Task A
Start

19:15

19:00

19:35

Task C
19:45

Task E
19:55
End

Task D

Task F

19:30

19:50

What is Es last predecessor?

E ended last
C ended after B
Task B
Task A
Start

19:15

19:00

19:35

Task C
19:45

Task E
19:55
End

Task D

Task F

19:30

19:50

What is Cs last predecessor?

E ended last
C ended after B
D ended after A
Task B
Task A
Start

19:15

19:00

19:35

Task C
19:45

Task E
19:55
End

Task D

Task F

19:30

19:50

Critical Path is E C D
Task B
Task A
Start

19:15

19:00

19:35

Task C
19:45

Task E
19:55
End

Task D

Task F

19:30

19:50

Tasks A, B, F had no direct bearing on the end time

Complicating simplicity
Schedule changes every day
Weekly / monthly processing
Application changes

Schedule relationships may not be

pristine
Jobs may be run multiple timesbe
sure to use the correct instance
If you want to graph the entire
schedule it gets more complicated

Why bother finding the CP?

Limit the data you need to look at to

investigate a late-finishing job

The cause is on the CP
Find changes
If the CP changes day to day: why?
Investigate impact of periodic
schedule differences
Addition of monthly processing
jobs may change the CP

What I do
Capture job stats every day to a
performance database
Standard practice

Extract history daily to XML file

Extract schedule once per day and

store for 45 days

Saved as XML files

Allows historical investigation

JavaScript browser application pulls

both data sources and allows for

investigation

Sample application
Input #1: Schedule XML file
A grouping of

<?xml version='1.0'?><?xml-stylesheet type='text/xsl'?>

jobs is an
<opc>
application
<app id='#AMCSMISCBILL'>
<op id='87' job='#AMCS331' arr='1930'><wkstn>CPUJ</wkstn>
A job is an
<desc>Online Bill Image xtract</desc>
operation
<pred><aid>#AMCSMISCBILL</aid><opid>81</opid></pred>

Each job has

<pred><aid>#AMCSMISCBILL</aid><opid>78</opid></pred>
predecessors and
<succ><aid>#SMCSDAILYRPTS</aid><opid>3</opid></succ>successors

Arrival time is the

<succ><aid>#AMCSDLYBKUP</aid><opid>6</opid></succ>
earliest the job
</op>
can run
<op id='90' job='#AMX1358' arr='1930'><wkstn>CPUJ</wkstn>
<desc>Load O/L Bill Image</desc>
<pred><aid>#AMCSMISCBILL</aid><opid>87</opid></pred>
<succ><aid>#AMCSMISCBILL</aid><opid>91</opid></succ>
</op>
</app>

Sample application
Input #2: Job Data XML file
Jobs by name
here

<job id="#AMCS331">
<sys>COCJ</sys><cls>0</cls><desc>MCSX4000</desc><cnt>24</cnt>
<acpu>2.18</acpu><aet>13.8</aet><mcpu>2.70</mcpu><met>26.7</met>
Norms, averages,
<run i="2009-05-09 2:01:55" rse=" 1:59:46, 2:01:56, 2:02:09">
maximums
<et>13.7</et><cp>2.16</cp><io>21632</io>
</run>
May have multiple
<run i="2009-05-08 0:51:46" rse=" 0:51:45, 0:51:48, 0:52:02">
runs per day
<et>16.5</et><cp>2.11</cp><io>21690</io>
</run>
<run i="2009-05-07 1:24:41" rse=" 1:22:04, 1:24:41, 1:24:52">
Read, start, end
times
<et>11.4</et><cp>2.12</cp><io>21740</io><sys>CO1J</sys>
</run>
</job>
Stats for single
run

Note relatively compact format designed to

reduce the file sizeunfortunately that increases
the complexity of interpreting the data

Sample application output

Compare days in two windows

Why later on 12/29?

Completely
different CP
here

Critical path
comes back
together here

Heres an ET
difference of >1
hour and CPU
>2x increase!

Sample application details

On CD at back of room
Very simple example coded quickly one
Sunday afternoon
May not be bug free
Will not satisfy all your needs
For illustrative purposes only easier to

understand than the examples in the paper

HTML / JavaScript application

Data is in XML files
Internet Explorer only
Uses XPath & XSLT

Beyond the scope of this presentation

Application flow
When HTML page loads
Calls init() to load the XML files
Selection criteria populated in HTML

When user clicks Find It button

Calls findIt() to find the critical path,

which in turn calls:

getRunsDate(job, date) returns array of

executions of a job on a given batch date
getLatestPred(job, app) returns
predecessor that ran last
getRunsDate is an

example of using DOM

functions to extract
data from XML

Critical parts of the code

findIt()

Get runs for this

job and date

Save stats for this

job to array
Then find preds
and add them to
the array
Loop through
array and build
HTML table

getLatestPred(cjob, capp)

XPath to get array

of preds
Use DOM calls to
get data from
XML
Xpath to find job
name from op id
Get the runs for a
pred job
Check run to see
if it is the latest
pred so far
If it is, save it

Thats essentially it!

getRunsDate(job, date) is nothing

special simply retrieves list of runs

from the XML file
Typical housekeeping code initializing
variables, etc.
Sample in the paper was much more
complicated due to it being pulled
from the application that does the
graphing

Summary
Critical Path Analysis for Performance

Analysis usually involves answering

why, not predicting the future
In such a case, start at the end and
work backwards
That type of analysis is easy to code
Record a snapshot of the schedule
daily as well as the job performance

Questions / comments ?

Bonus material: Export to

Excel!

Sometimes you need to play with your

data

Copy to Excel to
Re-sort
Filter
Pivot tables
Graph
Summarize

Cut and paste HTML tables works well

Even better: automate it

New & improved:

sendExcel() function on CD
If Excel not open, open it

If previous workbook not open

Open a new workbook

Add new sheet to work book with data

Requires IE and Excel

Useful references
XPath, XSLT, XML quick reference

cards

http://www.mulberrytech.com/quickref/index.html

Browser Book for Web Designers

http://www.visibone.com/products/browserbook.html

Humor for geeks

http://xkcd.com/