Spring Scheduled Task running in clustered environment

Question

There is a ShedLock project that serves exactly this purpose. You just annotate tasks which should be locked when executed

@Scheduled( ... )
@SchedulerLock(name = "scheduledTaskName")
public void scheduledTask() {
   // do something
}

Configure Spring and a LockProvider

@Configuration
@EnableScheduling
@EnableSchedulerLock(defaultLockAtMostFor = "10m")
class MySpringConfiguration {
    ...
    @Bean
    public LockProvider lockProvider(DataSource dataSource) {
       return new JdbcTemplateLockProvider(dataSource);
    }
    ...
}

I think you have to use Quartz Clustering with JDBC-JobStore for this purpose

The is another simple and robust way to safe execute a job in a cluster. You can based on database and execute the task only if the node is the "leader" in the cluster.

Also when a node is failed or shutdown in the cluster another node became the leader.

All you have is to create a "leader election" mechanism and every time to check if your are the leader:

@Scheduled(cron = "*/30 * * * * *")
public void executeFailedEmailTasks() {
    if (checkIfLeader()) {
        final List<EmailTask> list = emailTaskService.getFailedEmailTasks();
        for (EmailTask emailTask : list) {
            dispatchService.sendEmail(emailTask);
        }
    }
}

Follow those steps:

1.Define the object and table that holds one entry per node in the cluster:

@Entity(name = "SYS_NODE")
public class SystemNode {

/** The id. */
@Id
@GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
private Long id;

/** The name. */
@Column(name = "TIMESTAMP")
private String timestamp;

/** The ip. */
@Column(name = "IP")
private String ip;

/** The last ping. */
@Column(name = "LAST_PING")
private Date lastPing;

/** The last ping. */
@Column(name = "CREATED_AT")
private Date createdAt = new Date();

/** The last ping. */
@Column(name = "IS_LEADER")
private Boolean isLeader = Boolean.FALSE;

public Long getId() {
    return id;
}

public void setId(final Long id) {
    this.id = id;
}

public String getTimestamp() {
    return timestamp;
}

public void setTimestamp(final String timestamp) {
    this.timestamp = timestamp;
}

public String getIp() {
    return ip;
}

public void setIp(final String ip) {
    this.ip = ip;
}

public Date getLastPing() {
    return lastPing;
}

public void setLastPing(final Date lastPing) {
    this.lastPing = lastPing;
}

public Date getCreatedAt() {
    return createdAt;
}

public void setCreatedAt(final Date createdAt) {
    this.createdAt = createdAt;
}

public Boolean getIsLeader() {
    return isLeader;
}

public void setIsLeader(final Boolean isLeader) {
    this.isLeader = isLeader;
}

@Override
public String toString() {
    return "SystemNode{" +
            "id=" + id +
            ", timestamp='" + timestamp + '\'' +
            ", ip='" + ip + '\'' +
            ", lastPing=" + lastPing +
            ", createdAt=" + createdAt +
            ", isLeader=" + isLeader +
            '}';
}

}

2.Create the service that a) insert the node in database , b) check for leader

@Service
@Transactional
public class SystemNodeServiceImpl implements SystemNodeService,    ApplicationListener {

/** The logger. */
private static final Logger LOGGER = Logger.getLogger(SystemNodeService.class);

/** The constant NO_ALIVE_NODES. */
private static final String NO_ALIVE_NODES = "Not alive nodes found in list {0}";

/** The ip. */
private String ip;

/** The system service. */
private SystemService systemService;

/** The system node repository. */
private SystemNodeRepository systemNodeRepository;

@Autowired
public void setSystemService(final SystemService systemService) {
    this.systemService = systemService;
}

@Autowired
public void setSystemNodeRepository(final SystemNodeRepository systemNodeRepository) {
    this.systemNodeRepository = systemNodeRepository;
}

@Override
public void pingNode() {
    final SystemNode node = systemNodeRepository.findByIp(ip);
    if (node == null) {
        createNode();
    } else {
        updateNode(node);
    }
}

@Override
public void checkLeaderShip() {
    final List<SystemNode> allList = systemNodeRepository.findAll();
    final List<SystemNode> aliveList = filterAliveNodes(allList);

    SystemNode leader = findLeader(allList);
    if (leader != null && aliveList.contains(leader)) {
        setLeaderFlag(allList, Boolean.FALSE);
        leader.setIsLeader(Boolean.TRUE);
        systemNodeRepository.save(allList);
    } else {
        final SystemNode node = findMinNode(aliveList);

        setLeaderFlag(allList, Boolean.FALSE);
        node.setIsLeader(Boolean.TRUE);
        systemNodeRepository.save(allList);
    }
}

/**
 * Returns the leaded
 * @param list
 *          the list
 * @return  the leader
 */
private SystemNode findLeader(final List<SystemNode> list) {
    for (SystemNode systemNode : list) {
        if (systemNode.getIsLeader()) {
            return systemNode;
        }
    }
    return null;
}

@Override
public boolean isLeader() {
    final SystemNode node = systemNodeRepository.findByIp(ip);
    return node != null && node.getIsLeader();
}

@Override
public void onApplicationEvent(final ApplicationEvent applicationEvent) {
    try {
        ip = InetAddress.getLocalHost().getHostAddress();
    } catch (Exception e) {
        throw new RuntimeException(e);
    }
    if (applicationEvent instanceof ContextRefreshedEvent) {
        pingNode();
    }
}

/**
 * Creates the node
 */
private void createNode() {
    final SystemNode node = new SystemNode();
    node.setIp(ip);
    node.setTimestamp(String.valueOf(System.currentTimeMillis()));
    node.setCreatedAt(new Date());
    node.setLastPing(new Date());
    node.setIsLeader(CollectionUtils.isEmpty(systemNodeRepository.findAll()));
    systemNodeRepository.save(node);
}

/**
 * Updates the node
 */
private void updateNode(final SystemNode node) {
    node.setLastPing(new Date());
    systemNodeRepository.save(node);
}

/**
 * Returns the alive nodes.
 *
 * @param list
 *         the list
 * @return the alive nodes
 */
private List<SystemNode> filterAliveNodes(final List<SystemNode> list) {
    int timeout = systemService.getSetting(SettingEnum.SYSTEM_CONFIGURATION_SYSTEM_NODE_ALIVE_TIMEOUT, Integer.class);
    final List<SystemNode> finalList = new LinkedList<>();
    for (SystemNode systemNode : list) {
        if (!DateUtils.hasExpired(systemNode.getLastPing(), timeout)) {
            finalList.add(systemNode);
        }
    }
    if (CollectionUtils.isEmpty(finalList)) {
        LOGGER.warn(MessageFormat.format(NO_ALIVE_NODES, list));
        throw new RuntimeException(MessageFormat.format(NO_ALIVE_NODES, list));
    }
    return finalList;
}

/**
 * Finds the min name node.
 *
 * @param list
 *         the list
 * @return the min node
 */
private SystemNode findMinNode(final List<SystemNode> list) {
    SystemNode min = list.get(0);
    for (SystemNode systemNode : list) {
        if (systemNode.getTimestamp().compareTo(min.getTimestamp()) < -1) {
            min = systemNode;
        }
    }
    return min;
}

/**
 * Sets the leader flag.
 *
 * @param list
 *         the list
 * @param value
 *         the value
 */
private void setLeaderFlag(final List<SystemNode> list, final Boolean value) {
    for (SystemNode systemNode : list) {
        systemNode.setIsLeader(value);
    }
}

}

3.ping the database to send that your are alive

@Override
@Scheduled(cron = "0 0/5 * * * ?")
public void executeSystemNodePing() {
    systemNodeService.pingNode();
}

@Override
@Scheduled(cron = "0 0/10 * * * ?")
public void executeLeaderResolution() {
    systemNodeService.checkLeaderShip();
}

4.you are ready! Just check if you are the leader before execute the task:

@Override
@Scheduled(cron = "*/30 * * * * *")
public void executeFailedEmailTasks() {
    if (checkIfLeader()) {
        final List<EmailTask> list = emailTaskService.getFailedEmailTasks();
        for (EmailTask emailTask : list) {
            dispatchService.sendEmail(emailTask);
        }
    }
}

Batch and scheduled jobs are typically run on their own standalone servers, away from customer facing apps so it is not a common requirement to include a job in an application that is expected to run on a cluster. Additionally, jobs in clustered environments typically do not need to worry about other instances of the same job running in parallel so another reason why isolation of job instances is not a big requirement.

A simple solution would be to configure your jobs inside a Spring Profile. For example, if your current configuration is:

<beans>
  <bean id="someBean" .../>

  <task:scheduled-tasks>
    <task:scheduled ref="someBean" method="execute" cron="0/60 * * * * *"/>
  </task:scheduled-tasks>
</beans>

change it to:

<beans>
  <beans profile="scheduled">
    <bean id="someBean" .../>

    <task:scheduled-tasks>
      <task:scheduled ref="someBean" method="execute" cron="0/60 * * * * *"/>
    </task:scheduled-tasks>
  </beans>
</beans>

Then, launch your application on just one machine with the scheduled profile activated (-Dspring.profiles.active=scheduled).

If the primary server becomes unavailable for some reason, just launch another server with the profile enabled and things will continue to work just fine.

---

Things change if you want automatic failover for the jobs as well. Then, you will need to keep the job running on all servers and check synchronization through a common resource such as a database table, a clustered cache, a JMX variable, etc.