Resource Optimization
A goal of any IT automation solution is to ensure that resources tied to the execution
of workflows are provisioned and balanced properly in order to optimize their usage.
To enable true resource optimization:
- Workloads should be decoupled from their underlying hardware resources when completed
- An IT automation solution should provide automated provisioning and load balancing to distribute workloads based on business policies, infrastructure performance, workload capacity demands and resource availability
- A workload automation solution should ensure a minimum of "slack" time; waiting for a specific constraint and/or resource to become available to enable a workflow to successfully execute
By ensuring that resources have been allocated before a workflow is scheduled to execute, ActiveBatch can more easily meet SLA requirements and enable IT to deliver cost savings by allowing resources to be provisioned and de-provisioned based around workflow execution and completion.
ActiveBatch supports resource optimization in multiple ways. The Integrated Jobs Library provides dozens of Job Steps for physical, virtual and cloud-based resources, including SQL Server, Oracle database, VMware, Amazon EC2 and others, to allow users to construct workflows that include the provisioning and de-provisioning of these platforms. Additionally, ActiveBatch's Smart Queue provides for the automated provisioning and shutdown of virtual and cloud-based resources when scheduling machine resources, including SCVMM, VMware and Amazon EC2. Finally, Scheduling Analytics measures historical resource usage, load balancing and capacity, and based on upcoming workload schedules, analyzes future resource requirements for upcoming workloads and automatically provisions resources using the Smart Queue.
By using ActiveBatch, an IT organization can reduce operating expenses by dynamically provisioning and managing cloud server resources and do a better job of supporting workload execution and completion with "just in time" resource provisioning.
