Basic Job Concepts

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Note  This content applies to the Windows Logo Kit (WLK). For the latest information using the new Windows Hardware Certification Kit (HCK), see Windows HCK User's Guide on the Windows Hardware Dev Center.

A job is a set of tasks that can be executed on a client computer. Typically, you create a job to run a test, although, you can also create jobs to perform other actions. For more information about tasks, see Basic Task Concepts.

Jobs are stored within the DTM controller, and there is no practical limit to the number of jobs that a DTM controller can store. You can create a package that contains jobs and share that package with other testers who use DTM.

There are many fields associated with a job that you can use to group similar jobs and to search for specific jobs. The primary field that is used to group jobs is the Feature. For more information about organizing and searching for jobs, see How Jobs Are Organized.

Because a job is defined independently of the client computers that it will be executed on, jobs can be reused. Each job can have constraints that limit the types of client computers that the job can execute on. You can execute multiple instances of a job simultaneously. You can also create a job that requires more than one client computer to run, such as a job that needs one computer to act as a server and a second computer to act as a client.

A job can have one of four roles:

  • Automated: Runs without user intervention.

  • Manual: Represents the need for a user to perform manual actions.

  • Library: Is similar to an automated job, but can be reused within other jobs.

  • Configuration: Sets the value of a dimension.

You can use configuration jobs to make your set of jobs more modular. When you execute a job that requires a dimension, DTM can automatically execute a configuration job that sets that dimension. By using configuration jobs, you can create many jobs that require a certain configuration of the client computer without including the tasks to create that configuration in every job. The configuration task would be isolated in the configuration job.

Although all jobs share certain common features, the job role determines much of the important information that you must provide when you define the job.

DTM provides information about the job and about the computer that the job is executing on in the form of variables. You can access the values of these variables from the tasks in a job. You can also define your own parameters and access the parameters' values from the tasks in a job.

Before you create your own job, it is recommended that you study the details of any existing job that performs tasks that are similar to the ones you want your new job to complete. That way you can make sure that you do not create a duplicate of a job that already exists. Exploring the job information tabs for any job will provide you with more information about how a particular job works and how it can be modified for non-logo testing.

For more information about creating a job, see Defining a Job.

 

 

Build date: 9/14/2012