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ActiveBatch 7 puts Web services into workflows


By David Worthington
February 24, 2009 — 
Advanced Systems Concepts, maker of ActiveBatch, software for job scheduling and workload automation, has delivered a new version of ActiveBatch that can consume externally developed Web services as parts of workflows.

ActiveBatch 7 became generally available today. It includes a library of Web Services Description Language (WSDL) artifacts for Web services. It also includes an updated library of application profiles along with new change management capabilities.

ActiveBatch enables developers to build workflows across applications by using templates. "Nearly every application, database and platform has some type of job scheduling," said Jim Manias, vice president of marketing and sales at Advanced Systems Concepts. "The problem is that they are somewhat autistic, focused inward and not outward toward integration."

Version 7 expands workflow capabilities by incorporating Web services. A services library of internally and externally created WSDLs can be used as part of job steps, explained Manias.

"A developer could load a WSDL provided by Salesforce to expose the methods that the WSDL provides to be embedded into something else, [then] use that information to pass from one job step to other job steps as a variable," said Manias.

WSDL support also eliminates the need for adaptors and scripts to integrate applications, he added.

“If this integration with applications and other infrastructure is standards-based using technologies such as SOA or Web services, then it will minimize [difficulty] and time of deployment. It will also improve the ability of a job scheduler to manage a continually changing environment,” said Milind Govekar, research vice president at Gartner.

ActiveBatch's ability to integrate enterprise applications has also been expanded, with updates to templates for Crystal Reports, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle Database, Secure FTP and file operations, and Symantec Backup Exec, as well as support for the Microsoft Message Queuing messaging protocol.

A drag-and-drop designer is now available to integrate applications with ActiveBatch Services. "We are opening up the library going forward for developers to create their own job steps," said Manias.

He explained that a developer could use the designer to "drag" an SQL Server Integration Services package process into a workspace, select what they are looking for, and use variables to trigger the package to pass information from one workflow to the next.

A power management facility has been added as a job step to wake servers when they are needed, reducing data center power consumption.

Additionally, ActiveBatch's event architecture has been broadened beyond date and time parameters to accept a range of file content and file management triggers, service monitoring triggers, and triggers based on e-mail (keyword triggered), message queues and Web services. There are now over 15,000 events to trigger workflows, Manias noted.

To tackle complexity, a new change management system enables developers to see  and resolve differences between workflows. It also has a restoration capability that Manias says will help lower the cost of workflow maintenance and help to create more reusable objects in the job library.


Related Search Term(s): Web development


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