August 9, 2011 – Advanced Systems Concepts enhances ActiveBatch software via the release of Service Pack 2 (SP2) for ActiveBatch Version 8. Enhancements include the addition of a number of new job steps for specific SAP applications and tools including SAP NetWeaver BC-XBP Version 3.0, the SAP BW-SCH data warehousing tool, and SAP BusinessObjects Data Services. With Service Pack 2, ActiveBatch V8 is certified for BC-XBP (eXternal Interface for Job Background Processing) Version 3.0.
BC-XBP V3.0 support gives ActiveBatch users a series of new jobs in the ActiveBatch Jobs Library that integrate and manage NetWeaver BC-XBP processes across applications, databases and technologies. Other specifics of SP2’s capabilities, both inside and outside the SAP environment, include:
- SAP BW-SCH Certification—ActiveBatch is now certified for BW-SCH, an SAP data warehousing tool for managing and manipulating data using techniques including process chains and InfoPackages.
- SAP BusinessObjects Data Services—New job steps in the ActiveBatch Jobs Library allow users to integrate and support business processes under BusinessObjects Data Services, a powerful data integration and data quality management tool.
- Zenoss Management Pack—Debuting in SP2 is the ActiveBatch Management Pack for Zenoss, the popular open-source host, application, server and network monitoring platform.
- New Informatica Job Steps—Service Pack 2 builds on the Informatica PowerCenter job steps that debuted with Version 8.
Through SP2, ActiveBatch V8 provides a series of job steps to schedule and manage NetWeaver and BW-SCH processes via the ActiveBatch console; users can schedule, run and monitor ASAP processes and process chains, monitor them in real time, and use their completion as a trigger to start another job within a workflow.
The job steps can manage more than 20 such processes within other applications and databases, all from the ActiveBatch central console, using constraints, event triggers, monitoring, alerts, audits and much more.
ActiveBatch’s Zenoss Management Pack lets network and IT operations staff centrally monitor the health and performance of ActiveBatch jobs, plans and queues, in addition to monitoring the services for the ActiveBatch Job Scheduler and execution agents.
Now, users can enjoy advanced properties for more precise execution; the ability to pass parameters when starting, stopping or synching to workflows and tasks; a new job step to log out of the repository; and a new “Get Session Statistics” job step that gives detailed information such as status, errors, or number of failed/succeeded/applied rows during ETL.
Centralized Management
With the new job steps in SP2, ActiveBatch users enjoy greater convenience than ever before in coordinating and monitoring jobs from a centralized console. Via the BC-XBP interface, for example, users can automate processes in the areas of criteria management, event-driven scheduling, application information, spooling and variant handling. The ActiveBatch Management Pack for Zenoss provides similar centralized management advantages. It also allows the Zenoss Server to inquire about the health of ActiveBatch objects such as mission-critical workflows that may include the failures of jobs, plans and queues. Furthermore, the Pack provides important information regarding memory usage, CPU, number of open files and threads of any ActiveBatch Execution Agent.
Availability
ActiveBatch users can download a free installation kit for Zenoss Server from their MyASCI portal that simplifies the setup for managing the ActiveBatch Job Scheduling Service and any of the Execution Agent services for Linux, Unix and Windows. The monitoring of ActiveBatch objects including jobs, plans and queues, in addition to ActiveBatch services, requires the ActiveBatch Management Pack for Zenoss, which is separately licensed.