3 Ways Workload Automation Software Bridges Legacy and Modern IT Infrastructure
When an IT team puts time, energy, and talent into a homegrown scheduler—or even just lines and lines of custom code—it can be hard to move on. Once complicated processes and workarounds that keep jobs running are established, untangling the mess seems too daunting of a task to take on. But switching from legacy tools to workload automation software (WLA) doesn’t have to be complicated.
In fact, existing code can still be utilized by an enterprise WLA tool. Here are three ways WLA software acts as a bridge between legacy and modern IT infrastructure.
1. WLA Software Connects All Platforms in Your IT Environment
Whether on Windows or Linux based servers, MAC and PC operating systems, or on-premise and cloud applications, jobs and workloads exist on multiple platforms. As IT environments grow, it becomes more and more difficult to keep jobs running in sync. And if platform A and system B can’t communicate reliably, no amount of clever workarounds can keep an IT environment running smoothly—risking downtime or even security threats.
Workload automation tools unify jobs across multiple applications, systems, and platforms—even legacy systems. WLA software reliably runs batch jobs and extends the capabilities of native and legacy schedulers, combining jobs into powerful sequences for concurrent execution. Triggering multi-step workflows that
2. WLA Software Standardizes Processes
When IT team members work in siloes, as is often the case for organizations maintaining outdated versions of legacy tools and code, it leads to inconsistencies across the team. Without standardized processes in place, it’s much more difficult to troubleshoot issues and scale processes. And when those team members move on from the organization, there’s a risk of losing institutional knowledge if there aren’t structures in place for continuity.
Workload automation software creates a space to formally define workflows and create standard processes. These processes common to many workflows, such as logon scripts and queries, become reusable building blocks that can be changed in one place and then cascaded to all the processes that rely on them. And when a WLA solution has low-code automation features, IT teams can further simplify the repetitive parts of building automation, cutting down the manual work holding back rapid development.
3. WLA Software Provides a Centralized Code Repository
Workload automation solutions also provide a centralized repository for all your code. WLA software prevents the source of batch jobs and workloads from winding up in all sorts of repos across your IT team, further tearing down the silos that make legacy systems and code difficult to scale. By consolidating the sources of all the jobs and workloads across your environment, WLA tools provide one central repository for job definitions, regardless of execution method.
One of the biggest benefits of a centralized code repository is making it easier to apply consistent security settings, like access controls. This ensures the right people have the right access to make changes—or not make changes—to any code. Plus, a centralized code repo makes it easier to apply version control that logs and versions changes to the properties of each job like its schedule, dependencies, parameters, and more. Should issues arise, it’s that much easier to troubleshoot with a detailed log to look through, and the ability to revert to previous working versions.
Ready to Modernize Your IT Environment?
When IT teams feel the limitations of legacy or homegrown scheduling, workload automation software from JAMS acts as a bridge to modernization. JAMS brings together IT environments to orchestrate jobs and workloads from every platform. Event-based scheduling lets IT teams run their environment on their terms—not on the terms of any tool—under a single pane of glass. Plus, JAMS takes the pain out of the migration process, pulling the core properties—schedule, exceptions, credentials, and job sources—from existing tools directly into JAMS.