This paper examines the evolution of IT organizations as they move from static batch processing to dynamic workload automation capabilities that integrate with and understand business processes and trigger revenue-generating actions based on real-time requests. The paper also looks at the role of vendor UC4 in this strategically important market. Learn more today!
The Time Is Now for Considering Workload Automation August 2008 Adapted from IT Organizations Are Maturing from Job Scheduling to Workload Automation by Stephen Elliot, IDC #207109
Sponsored by UC4 IT organizations have historically purchased job scheduling solutions with limited real-time visibility or application awareness that reduces the business alignment of this important technology asset. It is only during the past few years that IT executives have realized that batch processing of critical business applications requires a new paradigm — a paradigm that centers around automation and event-based scheduling that understands and integrates with the underlying business application. The need to move to a more dynamic automation-enabled IT strategy has never been more necessary; globalization, compliance assurance pressure, real-time consumer and enterprise expectations, and the need to align technology investments with business outcomes are key requirements for business success. Executives are faced with endless pressure to lower infrastructure costs and limit headcount increases while improving quality of service (QoS) capabilities. It will be increasingly difficult to achieve these goals without automating and integrating into business processes investments such as workload automation. Workload automation offers a more dynamic, flexible, and agile infrastructure that can respond to business events that drive revenue as well as datacenter activities. This paper examines the evolution of IT organizations as they move from static batch processing to dynamic workload automation capabilities that integrate with and understand business processes and trigger revenue-generating actions based on real-time requests. The paper also looks at the role of vendor UC4 in this strategically important market.
The Business Need for Workload Automation
Many IT organizations have initiated discussions on migrating from traditional time and date–based job schedulers to automated solutions offering event-driven batch processing and job scheduling. The pressing need to improve integration with, and visibility of, critical business processes that impact revenue and profit in real time is fast becoming a requirement for success for IT teams maturing from reactive to proactive, profit-based organizations. This need transcends the distributed and mainframe environments for workload automation and forces new product requirements such as interface consolidation, automated process workflows, application integrations, heterogeneous infrastructure support, and extensive reporting.
Business demands such as compliance, revenue growth, and profitability are driving the need for more automated operations across the IT organization; job scheduling is no exception. The notion that static environments and politically intensive IT silos can drive business innovation is fast becoming a myth. Efficient operations demand the automation of tasks and business process integration, which, until a few years ago, did not exist within job schedulers. There is a market need for faster batch processing that drives alignment with business value through a direct revenue link. IT organizations can no longer ignore this pressure, as business revenue and reputation increasingly depend on real-time customer interactions that rely on supporting heterogeneous infrastructure such as workload automation solutions.
IDC 685 Automation Must Span the Business Process
In simple terms, a business process is an interdependent collection of information spanning multiple people, application(s), and infrastructure (e.g., server, storage) that drive a business outcome. It is clear that workload automation must span all these areas and offer value to the various constituencies that use the solutions. From the staffing perspective, examples include the following: ! Operations departments require a product that is easy to learn and manage on a day-to-day basis and that provides operations-specific views that deliver knowledge on critical job success. ! Production control/development teams require flexible tools to build complex job automations across business transaction flows in short time periods based on business cycles. ! Executive management requires tools that measure performance and mitigate compliance risk and needs access to quickly see the current status of ... [download for more]
