A scheduled task is a background task that runs at server startup, shutdown, or at scheduled intervals during server operation. You can use scheduled tasks to automate periodic configuration and maintenance activities.

EAServer provides several predefined tasks to perform common maintenance operations such as collecting memory and component invocation statistics.

You can define new tasks to run predefined task operations, such as:

• Parsing logs for errors

• Running SQL commands through a data source to configure the remote database server

• Posting a message to a JMS message queue

• Calling application code such as an EJB stateful session bean method or running an application client

• Running operating system commands

• Sending email to server administrators

You can also assemble task chains, to combine operations defined in multiple tasks. For example, you can combine tasks that check for log errors with an email task to alert administrators to errors in the log.