If your entire IT environment is exclusively Microsoft Windows, then absolutely your enterprise job scheduling solution is Windows Task Scheduler. But if that environment includes other applications, like SQL Server, Oracle, or Exchange, or if you run more than one operating system (OS), such as flavors of UNIX or Linux, Windows Task Scheduler isn’t going to solve your problems.
An enterprise job scheduling solution orchestrates tasks across multiple platforms and applications, all from a single and centralized location. To do so, such a solution needs to speak every language across every platform and application, all at once. In Chapter 1 of Solutions for Automating IT Job Scheduling, we talk about how this centralization is a boon for heterogeneous data centers:
From a central location, an IT job scheduling solution
creates a platform on which to run all your little
“automation packages” that might otherwise be
spread across technologies. Using a centralized
solution, a database job, a UNIX/Linux job, and an FTP
job are all parts of the same management framework.
Multiple language support isn’t its only value-add. Solutions that enable this centralization of IT tasks go far beyond the limited scheduling capabilities of the standard Windows Task Scheduler. Think for a minute about the ways in which Task Scheduler can trigger a script to run. That trigger can be based on a time of day or day of the week. Newer Microsoft OSs integrate Event Log monitoring directly into Task Scheduler. Enterprising admins can even kick off tasks when certain performance behaviors are experienced.
Yet although these triggers are fairly powerful, they’re still very limited to the Windows OS. The Windows Task Scheduler will never be able to kick off a task when an Oracle database updates a row. It has no instrumentation into a UNIX mainframe to know when to start an FTP session. You’ll have a hard time enacting change inside an SAP instance from the Task Scheduler console.
Its scheduling is also limited in the types of actions it can kick off. Anything that works in a batch file will obviously work. VBScripts and PowerShell cmdlets will also work if the environment hasn’t locked them out. But invoking a change to a database or enacting change in a middleware system is far outside its limited reach.
Most importantly, schedules and their associated tasks in Task Scheduler are difficult to re-use. Lacking an object-oriented approach, setting up a task there means setting it up again the next time you need it. We discuss this object-oriented approach in the book:
Using an object-oriented approach, it makes sense
to consolidate individual actions into separate jobs.
This single-action-per-job approach ensures that
jobs are re-usable elsewhere and for other
purposes. It means that I can create a job called
“Connect to Oracle Database” and use that job any
time I need to make an Oracle database connection
anywhere.
You’ll get just that flexible support with an enterprise job scheduling solution. Are you getting headaches with all the little scripts and jobs that you’ve got floating around your data center? If so, take a look through Solutions for Automating IT Job Scheduling. In it, you’ll find ideas for how to evolve past the Task Scheduler rat race.
This tip comes to us from author Greg Shields via our friends at Realtime Publishers.
Author Bio
Greg Shields is an independent author, speaker, and IT consultant, as well as a Partner and Principal Technologist with Concentrated Technology. With 15 years in information technology, Greg has developed extensive experience in systems administration, engineering, and architecture specializing in Microsoft OS, remote application, systems management, and virtualization technologies. He is a Contributing Editor and columnist for TechNet Magazine and Redmond Magazine, and serves as the Series Editor for Realtime Publishers, the world's leading provider of high-quality content for the IT market. Greg is a highly sought-after and top-ranked speaker for both live and recorded events, and is seen regularly at conferences like TechMentor Events, Microsoft Tech Ed, VMworld, and more. He is a multiple recipient of Microsoft "Most Valuable Professional" award.