BMC cooks up batch management tools

BMC’s Batch Impact Manager is add-on software to the vendor’s Control-M job scheduling and batch processing management software. BIM uses data Control-M collects to track the performance of scheduled jobs and send alerts when a slowdown in batch processing could affect a business service, such as check processing, or order e-mail notifications.

BMC Software this week is set to unveil software that can alert IT managers when batch job failures or performance decreases will affect critical business services.

BMC’s Batch Impact Manager (BIM) is add-on software to the vendor’s Control-M job scheduling and batch processing management software. BIM uses data Control-M collects to track the performance of scheduled jobs and send alerts when a slowdown in batch processing could affect a business service, such as check processing, or order e-mail notifications.

With batch processing, a group of similar requests is stored and then executed at one time, without intervention from a user.

Control-M uses a combination of server software and distributed agents to collect data from managed systems that perform jobs such as check processing or data warehousing. Customers can use Control-M to define jobs, configure the software to automatically start jobs, and monitor their progress and completion. BIM is installed on the same dedicated Unix, Windows or Linux server as Control-M, and customers can access BIM through a Web interface.

Customers can define in BIM their most critical business services and set performance thresholds to send alerts when the process isn’t meeting its deadline. Using data stored in Control-M and collected via its agents, BIM software builds a dependency map, or model of the paths jobs must follow, of all jobs that need to be on schedule to ensure the pre-defined business service is completed on time.

For example, if the batch processing for data warehousing needs to be completed by 7 a.m., an IT manager could configure the software to alert when the process misses one scheduled job at 2 a.m. A problem even five hours earlier could affect the service because the jobs are performed in a series that needs to be completed in order and in a certain timeframe.

At Cambridge Integrated Services Group, a worker’s compensation and liability insurance provider in Columbus, Ohio, check processing is critical. Control-M is installed on five servers monitoring 53 systems, with 3,200 defined batch-processing jobs that use nine paths. Product Control Coordinator Laurie Kenley says the group’s check-processing business service requires completion of 120 jobs.

“It’s essential that our check processing to vendors is done by 6 a.m. every day, and [BIM] alerts us when we might miss the deadline,” Kenley says.

Control-M competes with similar offerings from the likes of Computer Associates and IBM, but BMC executives say the capabilities included in BIM that let customers link batch processing performance to business services hasn’t been included in competitive products.

BIM is available this week, and pricing starts at $4,500.