Source Code Management for Centralized Workload Automation

Reining in the source of all your jobs is an essential step in your transition to centralized workload automation. Even if you are not writing code all day, you must think of yourself as a developer. Your “application” is the business. And, the features of your application are its automated workloads.

Silos are for Farms, Not Enterprises

Unlike an app development team, you don’t have the opportunity to pick a single set of standards. You have to work with whatever jobs your enterprise depends upon. The source of batch jobs and workloads  can wind up in all sorts of repos that are managed (or unmanaged) by different groups. DBAs keep their jobs in one repo, and developers keep theirs in another. Maybe you even have some job scripts for a legacy ERP system tucked away in a folder full of .txt files. (C’mon, you know you have a few of those.)

Leaving jobs’ source in silos creates security risks, and makes it incredibly difficult to scale. A single, small change, such as a new server name, could create hours of busy work that cuts into multiple departments.

Come Together

By consolidating the source of all your jobs and workloads, you immediately begin mitigating risks and costs. Having one central repository for job definitions means you can apply consistent security across every job, regardless of execution method. JAMS security settings enable you to distribute “just right” access controls for job source – whether or not a user can view or modify the source. In addition, your enterprise is less vulnerable to staff changes. You no longer have to worry about someone leaving the company and forgetting to grant others access to the source of critical jobs.

Parameters and the jobs that use them

A centralized job repo also cuts down the management costs associated with automation. Through the use of variables and parameters, JAMS streamlines job creation and job editing. For example, if you have 200 jobs that all use the connection string “DataSource=PBest-01” and you later learn that the data store has been moved to “RStarr-02”, you need only update the value of one parameter, a task that takes considerably less time than 200 manual edits.

Version control, another benefit of centralized job source, eliminates so much of the overhead of resolving job failure issues. JAMS logs and versions every change to a job’s source, so you know which user made the change, and when they made it. JAMS also versions and logs the automation properties of each job – its schedule, its parameters, its dependencies. So, no matter what input prevents a job’s successful execution, you have the ability to roll back to a previous working version.

JAMS Prepares You for Any Job Source

JAMS provides enterprises with a secure, centralized repository for every job type – .bat files, SSIS packages, Perl Scripts, that CMD you use to pull data out of that partner’s proprietary database – no matter what platform or application executes it.

So, the next time some business manager who brings in a 1/3 of your company’s revenue says, “Hey, let’s automate this SAS workflow,”, don’t start wringing your hands about how you are going to manage yet another job type. Define it as you would any other job, grant access to the right people, and focus on how to automate it in the context of your business.

See How JAMS Handles Your Jobs and Workflows

START A TRIAL