How to Use Dynamic Automation Tools to Improve Batch Processing (
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Batch processing is not going away any time soon. The efficiencies of batch processing, even in light of the real-time enterprise, cannot be discarded or ignored. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Alex Givens looks at five ways organizations can use dynamic automation tools to improve batch processing across applications and computing platforms.
Most
organizations these days rely heavily on batch processing to support
their existing applications. In fact, over 50 percent of current
application processing is batch. Often, these processes have been in
place for years, are not well-documented and the knowledge owner may
have moved on.
Given the importance of batch processing and the current state of
the economy, now is the perfect time to improve your current batch
processing mechanisms to drive new efficiencies that can translate into
lower total cost of ownership and increased return on investment of
applications.
Here are five ways organizations can use dynamic automation tools to
improve batch processing across applications and computing platforms:
1. Expand the scope of job scheduling with workload automation
Most IT staff already have a mental image of "job scheduling" and
many people only consider batch processing for those processes that run
on very regular date and time-based schedule. Enter workload
automation, which is the modern, state-of-the-art descendent of
traditional job schedulers.
Embracing newer concepts such as object orientation, dynamic event
processing and service orientation, modern workload automation products
allow organizations to expand their scope beyond simple date and time
scheduling. Organizations can therefore target a much wider range of
jobs and processes for automation and control.
For example, workload automation can control a business process that
involves application jobs from multiple applications mixed with
Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) processing. Or workload
automation can be used to leverage service-oriented architecture (SOA)
for business processing and combine dynamic control of virtualized
environments with the ongoing business processing.
2. Centralize workload automation and control
In many organizations, the batch processing function is not
centralized. Redundant effort is spent managing processing for various
applications across multiple operating systems. Large-scale
applications and operating systems have their own schedulers (such as
cron and winat) that require expertise and effort to manage.
This leaves organizations without a "single pane of glass" through
which to monitor and manage processing across their enterprise
landscape of various operating systems, physical and virtual servers,
and applications.
Organizations should look to consolidate on a single workload
automation product or architecture that also provides very tight
integration into their enterprise applications. The three
benefits of centralization are one-stop operational control for
monitoring, notification, troubleshooting and documentation; simplified
setup and greater flexibility to mix and match processing across
applications and servers; and easier auditing and reporting for
compliance purposes.
Enterprise Applications 
