The difference between CA-7 and ESP based on my experience:
Terminology differences:
CA-7 has SCHID’s to show differences in streams and ESP has an APPLICATION which is a group of jobs in a PDS member.
ESP has EXTERNAL’s which is a requirement from outside APPLICATION and CA-7 has JOBCONN DB which includes all JOB dependence not represented by TRIG within the SCHID.
CA-7 use a VSAM database with job definitions link together into stream using schid's, ESP uses a PDS with each member being a group of jobs linked together with releases statement connecting related jobs.
CA-7 submits a job’s JCL from a copy found in a Trailer Queue, ESP submit directly from the JCL library.
CA-7 is a little slower triggering the next job into the queue because it relies on an internal clock to drive schedule scan and then read database to trigger the next job. ESP is command based so when the job completes in drives the schedule in the queue releasing the next JOB.
In CA-7 when you want to schedule a job you first “ADD” a job to the DB and then start connecting requirement in their DB’s. You define the RESOURCE in its DB then attach it to the JOB, Add dependence in its database and determine relationships in attaching a JOB with a schid to another job. In ESP the JOB will be in a PDS member with its related jobs from its application. All attributes of the job will be in the PDS member.
In ESP if a job needs to wait on the execution of another job in a different PDS member then an EXTERNAL is defined in that member. EXTERNAL requirement in ESP can get very complicated. You can look for a job SCHEDULED TODAY, or define a SCOPE value which states the number of hours you wait to look ahead or back to validate the requirement. CA-7 has similar elements with the look back of 99,98-01 and value of zero each meaning something different.
In CA-7 if job JOB2 waits on JOB1 to be complete it will also make sure a good execution of JOB1 has happened since the last time JOB2 ran. (i.e. JOB1 runs, JOB2 runs then JOB1, then JOB2 runs, etc ) So if a second JOB2 job come into the queue in CA-7 after the 1st one runs it will wait for another run of JOB1, The JOB2 in ESP will not wait.
ESP schedules a stream in all job come into the queue at onetime, CA-7 brings only in the lead job of a stream.
CA-7 can allow you to segregate the knowledge of the product but an ESP user need good overall knowledge of the production or they could make some serious mistakes.
Example: Basic triggering a job into the queue. CA-7 you need to know the job, schid and if the downstream need to run. issue the command demand,job=xyz,schid=99 but with ESP you need to know the job, you need to know what PDS member it’s in, if it runs on a specific day, and you need to know if those jobs post other EXTERNAL's. Now the triggering you need to trigger the job from a screen (possible with a command but could get very long) First you simulate triggering the job with the correct DAY, TIME, ROOT JOBS (if you need to start in the middle or more use more than one leg of the stream), and if you use the ROOT JOBS you need check each EXTERNAL to insure it’s not impacted by your restricting the stream by ROOT JOBS. When simulating or triggering you need to be aware of the RUN statements to make sure you get the right jobs and insure the jobs come into the queue now not sometime in the future.
In CA-7 if a job stream has different job because of day of the week you need to build a new SCHID stream and schedule to accommodate the new SCHID. In ESP you only need to add the job in the PDS member with the upstream job, Add a RELEASE statement to the job scope of the depend job and then defined the job with the correct RUN statement.
ESP has program language called CLANG used within an APPLICATION giving you IF THEN logic and SUBSTRG to use in building a stream which is not available with CA-7
ESP allows for user defined and has hundreds of vendor defined symbolic values available to both the JCL and schedule which allow for generic schedules and JCL. Nothing like this is available in CA-7.
Opinion section:
ESP Workstation is much better than CA-7 Workstation.
One of the biggest challenges is ESP there are several ways to do one thing in CA-7 there is possible only one way.
I’ve been an ESP user for 6 years and used CA-7 for 12+ years. I was a user and admin support for both products. We only used the products for mainframe scheduling. I love ESP it’s much more stable than CA-7. Less abends and system related issues. While we were sold ESP as being simple I wouldn’t agree with that but it is incredibly powerful. ESP gave me my best chance of including midrange and mainframe scheduling under the same umbrella but unfortunately the change in focus was from the mainframe to the midrange was too strong and I was unsuccessful.