List of job scheduler software
This is a list of notable job scheduling software. Job scheduling applications are designed to carry out repetitive tasks as defined in a schedule based upon calendar and event conditions. More recently this category of software is increasingly labeled as 'Workload Automation', which is an industry term for the next generation of job scheduling applications.
Abstract
The products are divided into four categories: standalone vendor software supporting ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software, standalone vendor software without ERP support, non-vendor schedulers, and platform built-ins. (Typically the goal of "ERP software" is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions within an organization.)
Only products having a Wikipedia page for it or its vendor are listed. The products are ordered alphabetically.
Job scheduling products with ERP support
For the description of the functionalities in the table header, just click on it.
| Product (alphabetical) | Vendor | Version | Company Origin | Company size | User interface | Data storage | Script storage | Event driven | Agentless | Agents | Platforms | Central upgradable | Any OS account | stdout/err transfer | File events | File transfer | ERP Support | SAP XBP version | Role-based security | Auditing | Design lifecycle |
| ActiveBatch | Advanced Systems Concepts | 9.0 | USA | Dedicated | Thick-Client GUI, Thin-Client Web Browser and Mobile | Database | yes | yes | yes | yes | Unix, Linux,Windows, IBM iSeries & AIX, Amazon EC2, VMware, Hyper-V, Xen, Azure, Mac OS, OpenVMS, z/OS, HP UX & NSK | yes | yes | yes | yes | SAP Business Objects & NetWeaver, Oracle EBS, PeopleSoft, Dynamics AX, Informatica PowerCenter, IBM Cognos & DataStage, Netezza, Teradata | 2.0 and 3.0 | yes | yes | yes | |
| AutoSys | CA | r11.0 | Large | Browser, thin client | Database | yes | yes | no | yes | UNIX/Linux, Windows, AIX | |||||||||||
| Batchman | Honico | 5.0 | Germany | Dedicated | GUI Browser | yes | yes | yes | All SAP Platforms | yes | yes | yes | yes | SAP only | 2.0 and 3.0 | ||||||
| Control-M | BMC | 9.0 | USA | Large | Fat GUI, Web Launch for Zero Admin, Web Browser and Mobile Self Service | Database | yes | yes | yes | yes | Unix/Linux/Linux s390, Windows, iSeries Tandem OpenVMS, z/OS, HP mPE, Unisys 2200, Mapper | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | SAP, Oracle EBS Peoplsoft, Business Objects, Informatica, Cognos, Oracle Business Intelligence, VMware Vcenter,AWS, Azure, Oracle RDBMS, IBM UDB RDBMS, Microsoft SQL Server RDBMS | 2.0 and 3.0 | yes | yes | yes |
| Flux | Flux | 8.0 | USA | Dedicated | Browser GUI, Command Line, REST services, Java API, scripting | Database and/or XML Files | yes | yes | yes | yes | Unix/Linux/AIX/Solaris, Windows, HP, JEE, SOA, Amazon EC2, VMWare | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | SAP, SAP Business Objects, Cognos, Informatica, Oracle EBS, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft | yes | yes | yes | |
| Visual TOM | Absyss | 6.1 | France | Dedicated | Web browser, Fat GUI, Command Line | Relational Embedded Database | no | yes | yes | yes | Unix (AIX, HPUX, Solaris), Linux Windows, Z/OS, OS400, VMS, Gcos8, Gcos7 | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | SAP NetWeaver, SAP BW, SAP DS, SAP BO, Oracle Peoplesoft, Lawson M3, Microsoft Dynamics AX | 2.0 and 3.0 | yes | yes | yes |
| Global ECS | Vinzant Software | 4.6 | USA | Dedicated | Thick-Client GUI, Browser GUI | Database | no | yes | no | yes | Unix, Linux, Windows, IBM iSeries & AIX, MPE/iX | yes | yes | yes | yes | SAP | 2.0 and 3.0 | yes | yes | yes | |
| JAMS Scheduler | MVP | 6.1 | USA | Dedicated | GUI, Browser, CLI | Database | yes | yes | possible | yes | Unix, Linux, Windows, iSeries, OpenVMS | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | Ecometry, JDEdwards, Oracle, Peoplesoft, SAP, Symitar | 2.0 and 3.0 | yes | yes | yes |
| ProActive Cloud Automation | ActiveEon | 7.19 | France | Dedicated | Web Browser, Command Line, REST API | Database | yes | yes | yes | yes | UNIX, Linux, Windows, IBM iSeries & AIX, HP UX, Mac OS Hyper-V, Xen, KVM, Docker, VMWare, OpenStack, Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, IBM Bluemix, Google Cloud Platform | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | SAP, Oracle, Tibco, SAS, Talend, Web Service and REST API, ETL, ESB, Multi-systems | yes | yes | yes (export/import of workflows) | |
| Skybot Scheduler | HelpSystems | 3.9 | USA | Large | Browser, GUI | Database | yes | yes | no | yes, can auto-update | Windows/x86; Linux/x86+PowerPC+s390x; AIX/PowerPC; Solaris/SPARC+x86; HP-UX/PA-RISC+Itanium; Macintosh/x86; IBM Power Systems servers running IBM i | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | SAP NetWeaver®, Oracle E-Business Suite®, Informatica PowerCenter®, Informatica Cloud, Microsoft SQL Server®, Web Services | 2.0 | yes | yes | yes |
Job scheduling products without ERP support
For the description of the functionalities in the table header just click on it.
| Product (alphabetical) | Vendor | Version | Company Origin | Company size | User interface | Data storage | Script storage | Event driven | Agentless | Agents | Platforms | Central upgradable | Any OS account | stdout/err transfer | File events | File transfer | Role-based security | Auditing | Design lifecycle |
| Grid Engine | Univa | ||||||||||||||||||
| Hinemos | NTT Data | 4.0.1 | Japan | Dedicated | Client, Browser | PostgreSQL | No | Yes | No | Yes | Unix Linux Windows | Yes | Yes | Yes | Future Version | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Job Arranger for Zabbix | Open Source, GPLv2, Daiwa Institute of Research Business Innovation Ltd. | 2.0 | Japan | Fat Client,CLI | MySQL PostgreSQL | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Linux Windows | Yes | Next Version | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | |
| JobScheduler | Open Source, GPLv2, SOS-Berlin | 1.10.6 | Germany | Dedicated | Browser, GUI, Fat client, Command Line, Web services | XML Files; Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server, DB2, PostgreSQL, Sybase ASE | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Master: Linux, Windows; Agent: All OSs with JVM | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| JobServer | Grand Logic | 3.6.7 | USA | Dedicated | Browser CLI | Oracle Mysql Postgresql | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Linux MacOSX Windows | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Obsidian Scheduler | Carfey Software | 4.0.2 (October 2016) | Canada | Dedicated | Java API, REST API, Browser | Relational Database | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Any system with a JVM | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| OpenLava | Open Source, GPLv2, Teraproc | 3.0 | Canada | Dedicated | C/C++,Python | Built-in | Yes | Linux | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||
| Platform LSF | Platform Computing now an IBM company | Canada | Dedicated | Unix Linux Windows | |||||||||||||||
| ProActive Workflows & Scheduling | ActiveEon | 7.19 | France | Dedicated | Web Browser, Command Line, REST API | Database | yes | yes | yes | yes | UNIX, Linux, Windows, IBM iSeries & AIX, HP UX, Mac OS Hyper-V, Xen, KVM, Docker, VMWare, OpenStack, Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, IBM Bluemix, Google Cloud Platform | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | SAP, Oracle, Tibco, SAS, Talend, Web Service and REST API, ETL, ESB, Multi-systems | yes (export/import of workflows) | |
| VisualCron | VisualCron | 7.7.3 | Sweden | Dedicated | WIndows Client, Web GUI, .NET API, REST API, Command Line | SQL CE | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Windows | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Lich Job Scheduler | Petrim Tecnologia | 1.0.0 | Brazil | Dedicated | Web GUI | MongoDB | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unix Linux Windows | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Non-vendor schedulers
Platform built-in schedulers
- Cron Unix built in scheduler
- Windows Task Scheduler
- JES2 and JES3 on IBM zOS
Descriptions of the features
Version
The information in this table is regarding this product version.
Company size
- Large : the company has many products
- Dedicated : the company's job scheduling product is their primary product
Script storage
- Some products are only capable of starting a script or executable which is already present on the target system. Eventually some environment variables are set prior to the script run.
- Some products are able to store scripts in their repository. When the job runs, its script is first transferred to the target system and then executed. This gives the batch job designer a central point of development.
Event driven
- Most modern job schedulers are event driven: jobs that run in sequence have no wait time.
- The opposite is time driven, like Windows' Scheduled tasks or Unix' crontab: a job runs at some time, and the next job is scheduled the expected runtime later plus some spare time.
Agents
- An agentless job scheduler makes use of RSH, or more secure, of SSH.
- An agent is a piece of software that is installed on every host, and is usually continuously connected to the central job scheduler. This causes more functionality to the agents, like a file trigger.
- A drawback of agents is that they must be upgraded from time to time, which can cause severe production downtime when having lots of agent systems.
Platforms
All kinds of Unix flavours mentioned by the vendors are notes as "Unix". The same goes for "Linux" and "Windows" and Mac.
Any OS account
Can the agent run a job as any OS-account on the target system? The agent of some products can only run a job as the user the agent runs as, which most likely must have a lot of privileges, which in turn might be a security issue.
stdout/err transfer
Can you inspect the standard output and/or standard error of the executed job on your viewer? Some systems even immediately transfer both to the central scheduler, which might give extra network load.
File events
Can the job scheduler react (start a job) on the appearance of a file? With this you don't have to poll for the file.
File transfer
Some vendors deliver a file transfer utility. The standard command-line FTP on e.g. Unix is not good enough for batch usage: a file might be failed to transfer, yet the 'bye' command went well so the exit status will be ok. The file that may link both the servers will give a proper scheduler procedure in the process.
ERP support
The list of ERP packages supported.
SAP XBP version
The SAP XBP interface comes in 2 versions: 2 and 3. Version 2 has an intercept table, while version 3 has for intercept an include and an exclude table. This is important when you want all SAP-jobs but a few being intercepted and routed through your scheduling system. Some SAP-jobs won't work well when intercepted.
Role-based security
Is it possible to grant privileges through roles to the users of your scheduling system? Think of developers, operators and administrators. Some products use LDAP or the Windows system AD.
Auditing
Some companies demand recording of all user actions (compliance), but if not it is still handy to backtrace who did some action, just to ask him why he did so.
Design lifecycle
Does the job scheduling system support the transfer of batch designs along development, test, approve and production repositories? Most products have an export- and import-feature, and some products have the transfer mechanism all built-in.
User Interfaces
Lists what kind of user interfaces are available to access the job Scheduler.
See also
- Quartz - open-source job scheduling service, for Java. It exists also as a port to .NET.