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
At Fortra, we consider automation a discipline, not just a singular product. Sure, individual automation tools can lead to quick wins by taking a repetitive task off your plate. But to reap the full benefits of automation across your organization—increasing efficiency, decreasing errors, and maximizing resources, both human and technological—you need to take a more
Native schedulers seem simple enough. They’re cheap, already installed with your platforms, and provide the basics—like backups, script execution, and simple time-based job scheduling. But after a while, the simplicity of Windows Task Scheduler, cron, SQL Agent, and other native schedulers reveals themselves to be quite complicated. In a perfect world, jobs always run reliably
When it comes to IT software, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a popular philosophy. After all, it pays to be cautious about making changes to your production environment. You want to weigh the risks when you replace the systems and applications that keep your business running. But, there’s also a time when
The migration process from legacy job scheduler to workload automation solution can seem daunting at first. By understanding the potential benefits and costs of each method, you will be better able to choose a migration path that fits your needs. Note that if you are consolidating multiple legacy schedulers you will need to select the
The Ohio Department of Public Safety’s transition from the mainframe offers valuable insight into the benefits of legacy modernization. The lessons learned apply broadly to IT pros, but are especially relevant to those who rely on well-architected automation and scheduling in a mainframe environment. The challenge of creating a “Windows-based environment that met or exceeded