Batch processing and ActiveBatch 7.0

If you are a business manager or IT consultant, you know that there is not enough time, time is your biggest killer, so many tasks that need to be executed in the shortest possible time.

The concept of batch processing (in its simplest form) is to have a software program (script) run a task for you. For example: each morning you launch your web browser and navigate your way to your chosen financial broker website to get the latest activities on a stock, with batch processing, you can automate this daily activity so at certain hour of the day, you will have the stock(s) activities displayed on your screen or even e-mailed to you.

Batch processing is to automate repetitive tasks by writing scripts (codes.) In my early programming days, I had to write scripts to run tests on website, they idea was to have the script send thothands of page requests to a particular website, to simulate the actual users. Writing the script was time consuming and error prone.

Since that time, lots of improvement is being made in the automation of batch processing. Several software vendors are offering solutions to ease task creation under batch processing. One the vendors’ solutions that I had the privilege to review was Activebatch 7.0 by Advanced Systems Concepts. Using tele-conferning and web conferencing, Jim Manias from Advanced Systems Concepts, gave me a great overview of the new ActiveBatch 7.0 release.

On of the main features of ActiveBatch 7.0 (which I try to discuss more in the coming posts), is significantly reducing the need to write scripts, most of scripts writing is already done for you, you only have to chose the task and click.

In the next several posts, I will try to get into more details of ActiveBatch 7.0 features.