How Businesses Benefit from Batch Job Scheduling—And When to Use It

How Businesses Benefit from Batch Job Scheduling

Enterprises have a lot on their plate. But it’s not just the number of tasks that keep enterprises busy, it’s the need to keep track of them in a streamlined way. For all companies, the absence of a job scheduling solution inevitably leads to issues with the task of ensuring necessary processes are attended to at the right time.

But in terms of carrying out this task, often it’s easier said than done. For businesses that don’t pursue a job scheduling solution, the process can prove especially difficult, since IT staffers will be saddled with manually administering all tasks that need to be carried out. When this kind of manual constraint is in place, it takes up the valuable time of IT staffers and prevents them from focusing on other business-critical efforts.

In the business world of today, where the widespread emergence of big data in particular is creating more tasks for businesses than ever before, companies can no longer afford to process large jobs in a cumbersome way that eats into staffer time. Fortunately, however, there’s a solution for enterprises that allows them to automate the behind-the-scenes work that’s necessary to sustain various enterprise apps and functionalities: batch processing.

THE ADVANTAGES OF BATCH JOB SCHEDULERS

Batch job schedulers are used by most companies because of their convenience and their ability to meet specific and business-critical functions. A big part of the reason these systems are deployed is because they take stress off of user interaction, which allows business leaders to know that processing is taking place without having to be burdened by excessive manual oversight. But the emphasis on less user interaction is just one of the reasons companies turn to batch processing as a dependable and business-forward way of handling large and complex multi-part jobs. Here are some of the other advantages:

  • Lowers costs: Batch processing is inexpensive in comparison to manual efforts, especially when considered against expanding business needs. This provides a key incentive for business operations that are looking to conserve money and at the same time bolster efficiency. One of the reasons costs can be saved is that a machine set aside for batch input doesn’t need the kind of expensive hardware and software that quickly racks up bills for the business.
  • Maximizes off-the-clock time: At the end of the day, the people at a business go home. But for a computer charged with batch processing, the workday doesn’t end. A key advantage of batch systems is that computers can be set to carry out processing tasks during after-hours periods. This gives businesses the ability to reduce processing costs and possible business impact by scheduling smart batch processes after-hours. Staff will also count it as a big convenience, since fewer computers will be encumbered by tasks that make them unusable during the workday, and the resiliency of smart processes all but eliminates the need for on-call technical staff.
  • Drives down the need for high-cost hardware: Not only is hardware expensive for companies to purchase, but it will also inevitably incur maintenance costs. However, batch job scheduling software can help minimize the need for – and idle time of – such hardware through batch process optimization and smart scheduling that removes system downtime.
  • Improves functions for businesses of all sizes: The setup of batch processing may lead some to believe that it’s a solution catered to big businesses. But, it’s ideal for organizations of all sizes, since pretty much every company out there has large repeated work tasks that need to be carried out – which batch processing is ideally suited to do.

Batch processing can be widely applied, but it’s put to its best use when it’s leveraged to deal with large or critical repeated jobs that must be carried out at a prescribed time or under specific conditions. Payroll and billing systems, for instance, represent two business processes that are very well-suited for batch data processing. Other business functions may require real-time data processing – namely those that demand immediate attention and require action as quickly as possible. In these scenarios, a batch that has processes scheduled to run hours or days after the initial scenario will probably not be the ideal choice. Most businesses will find that their scheduling boils down to an optimal mix of batch and dynamically scheduled jobs.

Creating an Effective Job Stream with JAMS

When it comes to job processing, businesses benefit a great deal when they choose to leverage the workload automation that accompanies enterprise job scheduling software. As a leading solution in this realm, JAMS provides users with a solution that enables JAMS to run both more reliably and smoothly. In terms of scheduling, including batch processes, JAMS is built to offer comprehensive job scheduling solutions, including:

  • Day of Week scheduling: With this scheduling option, users can configure jobs to be carried out on specific days during the week, specific days of the month, every day, workdays, and on intervals (e.g. Every Other Tuesday).
  • Recurrences and Retries: This is a solution that gives batch processes the ability to recover from issues they may encounter, and ensures that batch processes that need to run multiple times each day do so without manual intervention.
  • Event-driven scheduling: Not all business tasks can be entered onto a calendar. Some are contingent upon another task, or the presence of files. For these events (Event A leading to Event B) JAMS has dynamic, event-driven scheduling.
  • Dependency Requirements: In many cases, organizations may only want to run a batch process if other conditions are satisfied. Those conditions could include having enough resources to run a process, or that a file is available for editing. Dependencies allow processes to enter a “ready” state, so they will begin running as soon as the dependency is satisfied.

With JAMS, businesses can ensure that workload automation happens in the most robust way possible. Get started with a demo today.

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