Commander Scheduler

Commander Scheduler

Serving as the cornerstone to DCA's Integrated Mastering approach, Commander Scheduler provides scheduling of transfer, mastering, and verification jobs to be assigned to DCA or Singulus applications across the network or on local RAID systems. Scheduler can provide easy administration for any mastering configuration within your company.

Automatic Scheduling uses load-balancing techniques and user defined rules to automatically assign images to systems based on the current production load & compatibility of available image types.

Commander Scheduler reduces human errors when mastering images from a server. An image can only be assigned to a system which is configured for that type of image. It even checks the copy protection schemes licensed to the different systems and only allows compatible images to be assigned to systems that have the corresponding copy protection.

Automated Image File Management for servers and local RAID drives allow user defined rules to control when file images can be safely scheduled for automatic purging - an intelligent way to manage file images.

An intuitive user interface provides customizable display options and configurable login security levels for each user. Access to administration, scheduling, and monitoring functions can now be controlled across one or more networked Scheduler client applications on a user-by-user basis.

Scheduler has the additional advantage of scheduling mastering jobs loaded on hard drives or hard drives configured into a RAID array, regardless of the pre-mastering system used. The speed and throughput of today's modern high capacity and high speed disc drives far exceeds tape and other media. Therefore, restrictions on mastering speed due to the type of input media, for example, 8mm Exabyte tape, can be removed, allowing the LBR to master at a higher rate.

One of the biggest problem areas of network mastering has been the managing of server images and deciding when to remove images from the server. Commander Scheduler responds to this need with automated server management of images. Users can specify programmable rules to control when images are automatically deleted from the file server. For example, an automated rule can be specified to delete an image 72 hours after all scheduled activities have been completed successfully to free up critical disk space for new images.

The Job Event viewer gives users a consolidated view of scheduled image transfer, mastering, and verification activities of running jobs including percent complete and job duration - all remotely from the Scheduler client.

Improved event logging collects important details about who, what, when, and where production activities occur in real time and for historical viewing.

Commander Scheduler verifies the image and copy protection types are suitable for a given DCA formatter before allowing it to be scheduled - eliminating scheduling of images to inappropriate formatter systems.

DCA offers consulting services in the area of network mastering technology to assist customers in evaluating network options and reconfiguring existing infrastructure.

Contact us to learn more about Commander Scheduler.