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ActiveBatch Workload Automation

ActiveBatch Workload Automation

Overview

What is ActiveBatch Workload Automation?

ActiveBatch from Advanced Systems Concepts in New Jersey is IT workload automation software.

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What is ActiveBatch Workload Automation?

ActiveBatch from Advanced Systems Concepts in New Jersey is IT workload automation software.

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Features

Workload Automation

Workload automation tools manage event-based scheduling and resource management across a wide variety of applications, databases and architectures

9.6
Avg 8.3
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Product Details

What is ActiveBatch Workload Automation?

Advanced Systems Concepts, Inc. (ASCI) offers its Enterprise Job Scheduling and Workload Automation Solution, ActiveBatch.

ActiveBatch coordinates and consolidates silos of automation within a single framework. The goal is to give businesses the IT agility they need and reduce the time expended on managing and supporting multiple automation tools and silos. ActiveBatch provides users with advanced job scheduling and workload automation capabilities for reliable and adaptable integration with an array of applications, databases, platforms, and technologies. IT organizations can reduce their dependency on custom scripting with the ActiveBatch Integrated Jobs Library, which features hundreds of pre-built, proven, drag-and-drop integrations for commonly-scripted actions and functions in a multitude of different automation areas including workload, business and IT processes, managed file transfer, big data, and more.

ActiveBatch Workload Automation Features

Workload Automation Features

  • Supported: Multi-platform scheduling
  • Supported: Central monitoring
  • Supported: Logging
  • Supported: Alerts and notifications
  • Supported: Analysis and visualization
  • Supported: Application integration

ActiveBatch Workload Automation Videos

Find out how ActiveBatch can simplify your IT complexity with an industry leading job scheduling and workload automation solution! Most organizations have between 3 and 8 different automation tools in place. This results in an increased cost of IT Operations, siloed processes...
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The pace of business is accelerating. Business teams need real-time information faster than ever before. ActiveBatch Self-Service Portal empowers business users to take on daily and ad hoc processes with a business user-friendly, web-based interface for desktop or tablet brows...
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IT and business processes are scattered across multiple environments, and the systems being managed have increased tenfold. How can you address this complexity in a world where IT budgets are static and finding people with the right skills is a growing problem? The answer is a...
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ActiveBatch Workload Automation Integrations

ActiveBatch Workload Automation Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows, Linux, Mac, UNIX, Mac OS, IBM z/OS, Hyper-V, VMware, and more
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Mobile Web

Frequently Asked Questions

ActiveBatch from Advanced Systems Concepts in New Jersey is IT workload automation software.

Reviewers rate Multi-platform scheduling and Central monitoring and Logging highest, with a score of 9.6.

The most common users of ActiveBatch Workload Automation are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews From Top Reviewers

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(1-5 of 5)

Automating manual, repetitive tasks have never been easier!

Rating: 10 out of 10
March 09, 2023
KN
Vetted Review
Verified User
ActiveBatch Workload Automation
5 years of experience
Active Batch handles all of our nightly batch jobs including but not limited to file transfers between SFTP sites, SSRS report generation, file encryption/decryption and much more. We have several use cases for using Active Batch but one of the main drivers was having a solution to house all of our Windows Task Scheduler jobs, while task scheduler is great, it was a pain to manage and support. With Active Batch, we now have a single solution where we can see which jobs are running, how long they are running for, if they failed, and when they would run next, etc. We currently have about 1000 jobs in different Active Batch environments.
  • Alerts on job conditions such as failed, long running, or aborted.
  • Allows easy organization by associating jobs with objects and containing them within folders and/or plans.
  • Treats all items as an object which allows for continuous reuse of common items such as schedules and account credentials.
Cons
  • Sometimes execution agents can crash under heavy job load.
  • Execution agents do not auto update on their own.
  • Event based triggers are not 100% reliable.
Active Batch can provide end to end automation where other tools cannot. For example, you can subscribe to a SSRS report to have it deliver the report via email or even save it somewhere but if you have Active Batch generate the report, you can do the same things but also upload it to a SFTP server or encrypt the files using PGP encryption.
  • Object reuse design.
  • Alerts and notifications.
  • Job variety - you can run processes, scripts, or use the native jobs library builder.
Workload Automation (6)
100%
10.0
Multi-platform scheduling
100%
10.0
Central monitoring
100%
10.0
Logging
100%
10.0
Alerts and notifications
100%
10.0
Analysis and visualization
100%
10.0
Application integration
100%
10.0
  • We used to have manual processes that took hours each month, now it runs in Active Batch, allowing our teams to focus on higher-priority items.
  • The annual cost of Active Batch as a solution is fairly high.
I have used other products but I do not have the level of experience with them as I do Active Batch.

ActiveBatch Workload Automation Reduces Scheduling Time

Rating: 7 out of 10
March 30, 2022
BV
Vetted Review
Verified User
ActiveBatch Workload Automation
1 year of experience
We use ActiveBatch Workload Automation for our IT processes and systems. Before we needed to make different complex scripts, eg powershell. Now thanks to ActiveBatch Workload Automation it is centralized in one software application.
  • schedule jobs
  • consolidation of the different object and processes
  • expand the base line of the different jobs
Cons
  • still need some scripting code
  • some objects could be better intuitive
  • learning scale
ActiveBatch Workload Automation is best in large IT landscapes with a lot of business processes but less so in smaller organisations I believe. I think it is too complex for IT department that uses less than 50 objects. Because then the profit doesn't weighed the learning time.
  • scheduling Jobs
  • make it easy to expand the UI
  • The number of predefined objects
Workload Automation (6)
71.66666666666667%
7.2
Multi-platform scheduling
60%
6.0
Central monitoring
70%
7.0
Logging
80%
8.0
Alerts and notifications
70%
7.0
Analysis and visualization
90%
9.0
Application integration
60%
6.0
  • make a directly visible if something went wrong
  • not to worry when execute scheduled jobs
  • negative point is that only large businesses can benefits, I believe.
I only have used this software, so I can't judge other software. I wasn't involved in decision making.
Microsoft SQL Server, TOPdesk, Azure DevOps Server (formerly Team Foundation Server)

A Very Satisfied Customer/User of ActiveBatch

Rating: 10 out of 10
May 13, 2021
MS
Vetted Review
Verified User
ActiveBatch Workload Automation
5 years of experience
We use ActiveBatch to run our DW Informatica workflows, daily tableau reports, analytics jobs, and ICEDQ rules. This allows us to minimize downtime/errors when coordinating data loads, reporting, data quality, and analysis jobs. We can also easily scheduled prod to test data refreshes which helps our team and others with development and testing priorities.
  • Makes scheduling easy to understand, follow, and rerun jobs when necessary.
  • Allows for cross-team coordination of scheduled tasks which reduces errors.
  • Makes stopping jobs easy when needed for server/database downtime.
  • Scripting enables us to easily change email addresses for failed job alerts.
  • Nested plans/jobs make creating and changing dependencies simple.
Cons
  • On RARE occasions, have seen scheduling properties changed that don't take effect.
  • Simpler to understand/more robust reporting options would be nice to have.
  • Maybe I'm missing something, but why doesn't the Instances view show completion time? Just execution time and duration.
I can only speak for our environment, but it has allowed us to get away from the unfriendly Informatica PowerCenter workflow schedule. And coordination of Informatica/Tableau/ICEDQ has been a BIG help to us. We have not tried to drill down to the Informatica session-level of detail, just stayed with running workflows. The session-level logic seemed complicated.
  • Scheduling Informatica PowerCenter workflows.
  • Ability to trigger dependent jobs easily.
  • Using the Stop/start queues options for maintenance outages of our databases.
Workload Automation (6)
96.66666666666666%
9.7
Multi-platform scheduling
100%
10.0
Central monitoring
90%
9.0
Logging
90%
9.0
Alerts and notifications
100%
10.0
Analysis and visualization
100%
10.0
Application integration
100%
10.0
  • We have saved time of our development teams when implementing new jobs.
  • Eliminated errors when report jobs would start before data loads.
I was not involved in the evaluation/purchase decision of ActiveBatch as that decision was made at our VP level. So I cannot comment on other product comparison.
We can easily add new plans/jobs in our batch schedules.
Also, coordination with reporting and QA jobs is simple to do.
Building schedules, restarting jobs, triggering dependencies is easy to understand.
The system is very stable and allows us to easily see overall processing times.
  • Adding/updating plans and jobs is very quick and easy to do.
  • Stopping/restarting queues for planned technical outages.
  • Setting and tracking SLA successes/misses.
  • The reporting function is somewhat limited.
Yes, but I don't use it

ActiveBatch - lets the computers do the stuff computers are good at!

Rating: 9 out of 10
April 12, 2021
GP
Vetted Review
Verified User
ActiveBatch Workload Automation
9 years of experience
ActiveBatch [Workload Automation] jobs are developed by two departments, but those jobs are for (or affect) many departments across the whole organization.

We are consistently looking for repetitive tasks that are currently taking up employees time, but which can be automated. By building automation scripts, significant time savings are achieved, and employees are freed to work on tasks which are not repetitive - and thus scriptable.

ActiveBatch has been an excellent tool for this type of automation, as the job scripts are easy to develop quickly, and logging and alerting are strongly incorporated for when things don't go as expected.
  • File management - moving, archiving, and folder cleanup are a drag-and-drop breeze. The visual representation of file management steps includes date/time filtering, file/folder/both specification, and recursion all in an easy and intuitive unit.
  • FTP/SFTP/FTPS - while one must still write the FTP scripts, the interface simplifies much of the infrastructure, allowing the developer to encapsulate the script text in a graphical package that is easy and intuitive.
  • PowerShell integration - for anything that isn't easy in ActiveBatch's GUI, simply drop in a PowerShell step and write the task in PoSh - anything returned from PoSh can then be used by the following steps.
Cons
  • String handling / parsing. I find myself using PowerShell to do a fair amount of text parsing (particularly if manipulations are needed) - not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly a place where ActiveBatch could be improved.
  • Debugging - or lack of it! With no stepping debugger, it can be a longer process than many other programming / scripting environments: rather than simply stepping through and observing state changes, I find myself inserting logging steps to excess, then having to clean them up once the error is found.
  • The perennial - Documentation! While a near-universal complaint for *any* software, ActiveBatch's developer documentation is somewhat spotty - just where I need detail, I find summary-level info. There is lots of documentation (as there should be for a tool with such a wide range of applications), but it is in mixed formats (some PDF, some CHM), and the descriptions of specific fields within job steps is often little more than I can get in a tool-tip in the GUI. Allowable ranges, expected formats for string data, and similar helpful details are inconsistent.
  • The KnowledgeBase at ASCI's web site often has examples which answer the questions I have, but not always - and not always under the search terms one would think to use.
Any place one can find a task that is performed repeatedly - either on a schedule, or in response to a triggering state (i.e. a file being created in a specific folder) - that task is at least a good candidate for ActiveBatch [Workload] Automation to be used. Repeating FTP jobs, regular SQL tasks or maintenance, regular file system maintenance - all can likely be taken out of the hands of employees, freeing up time for less repetitive tasks.

ActiveBatch [Workload Automation] is not appropriate for any task which requires flexible judgment - it isn't an AI engine.

ActiveBatch [Workload Automation] also requires at least two servers - a manager ("Scheduler") and at least one worker ("Agent") - thus it is not a good choice for a very small company without those resources available. It is also somewhat costly - not in terms of value, but possibly beyond the reasonable budget of a small company or non-profit with thin profit margins where the investment may outweigh the return.
  • By far, the man-hours saved are the most important factor - and some of that is below the surface - while things like FTP files just being available rather than someone having to manually retrieve the file, or simple cleanup preventing overloading a server's drive space with multiplying temp files - this is the underlying benefit to all other benefits.
  • Ease of Use: most jobs can be developed within a few hours - or perhaps a day or two. To write an equivalent job in something like C# or Java would take much longer, and would likely be less flexible. Maintaining jobs once developed is similarly easy.
  • Unattended Scheduling - because tasks can be run as a specific user, and scheduled at any appropriate time, disruptive tasks can be scheduled and run in a way that minimizes disruption: files which must be opened exclusively can be processed well before users would normally be on the clock, resource-intense SQL jobs can be run at times of minimum impact, etc.
Workload Automation (6)
63.33333333333333%
6.3
Multi-platform scheduling
N/A
N/A
Central monitoring
70%
7.0
Logging
90%
9.0
Alerts and notifications
90%
9.0
Analysis and visualization
70%
7.0
Application integration
60%
6.0
  • I have not run numbers to determine hard impact, but a quick estimate is that at least one job is running for a average of about 6 hours per day - that 6 hours, if done by hand, would equate to about 30 - 40 hours per day (and in some cases, could not be duplicated manually, as the job repeats faster than a person could accomplish one cycle.)
During initial selection, we compared ActiveBatch with simple schedulers like Task Manager and cron, as well as VisualCron and JAMS. ActiveBatch had the widest range of triggers and the best scheduler/calendar system, and the most comprehensive list of easily-available actions.

We also were invited to use ASCI's normal tech support during a trial period - and having done a fair bit of tech support myself, I was very impressed! It was quick and easy to talk to an actual tech (minimal voice menu), and my questions were answered quickly and accurately, with a friendly tech who didn't sound as if I were an interruption to their game of solitaire (like I've gotten from plenty of other vendors). No other vendor we looked at invited us to evaluate their tech support so directly.

ActiveBatch Workload Automation Will Change Your World You Will See

Rating: 10 out of 10
May 16, 2021
SS
Vetted Review
Verified User
ActiveBatch Workload Automation
8 years of experience
ActiveBatch Workload Automation runs all of our nightly processes, creates server reports, verifies services are up and restarts them if not. Monitors mission critical servers and SAN units for space issues, encrypts and FTP's files to clients, sends out strategic notifications to clients and monitors SLA's. We use ActiveBatch Workload Automation for almost everything we do. It's an incredible piece of software.
  • ActiveBatch Workload Automation executes our nightly processes and then monitors every process through all of the stages then notifies the client sending them technical information about the job run.
  • ActiveBatch Workload Automation monitors our SAN and mission critical servers for space issues. When we get an alert from ActiveBatch Workload Automation we know it's legitimate.
  • ActiveBatch Workload Automation logs everything! If a job fails we know that we will have all the information we will need to troubleshoot the issue.
  • We have some jobs with 100's of steps and it doesn't even phase our Job Scheduler. It is an amazing application.
Cons
  • There could be a more robust user community to share idea's. There is one but I think it could be much better.
  • It's a very complicated application so it's not super easy to pick right up and start using it. We made some mistakes in the beginning that we feel we should have had a better understanding before we started using it. That's our fault.
ActiveBatch Workload Automation is a super robust application, it is suitable for almost anything, it has so many extensions into different applications such as VMware, Amazon EC2, Azure, Power Shell and many others. If it's digital, ActiveBatch Workload Automation can probably create an automated process solution.
  • Logging was one of the biggest reasons that we went with ActiveBatch Workload Automation.
  • Ability to restart a job at the point of failure was another reason.
  • ActiveBatch Workload Automation is stellar at Notification and monitoring features! It's amazing what you can do inside each job once you understand the genius of it.
Workload Automation (6)
100%
10.0
Multi-platform scheduling
100%
10.0
Central monitoring
100%
10.0
Logging
100%
10.0
Alerts and notifications
100%
10.0
Analysis and visualization
100%
10.0
Application integration
100%
10.0
  • ActiveBatch Workload Automation transformed our company! I always tell our directors please sell more we have the tool to handle it.
  • Our business objective was to give our clients a solid successful experience and ActiveBatch Workload Automation has exceeded our expectations by a long shot! It delivers day in and day out for us!
  • When we purchased ActiveBatch Workload Automation our clients were on the verge of leaving us. We had daily SLA violations that cost us dearly. ActiveBatch Workload Automation rescued us!
We looked at several other workload automation solutions and hands down we all looked at each other after seeing the demo and we all understood the genius of the application. To be honest we were all stunned and talked about it for weeks afterward. It didn't even compare to the other platforms we had demos of. We knew instinctively that this was the one.
Information Builders WebFOCUS, Globalscape Enhanced File Transfer (EFT), Microsoft SQL Server
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