ASG Updates Job Scheduler
March 20, 2012 Alex Woodie
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ASG Software Solutions last week unveiled ASG-Zena 3.1, a new release of its multi-platform workload automation utility, which supports the IBM i environment. The new release of the job scheduler brings several enhancements that the vendor says will improve workload automation tasks. A new graphical process whiteboard will provide a handy way to visualize process flows, minimize redundant definitions, and provide more flexible scheduling of machine resources. Zena 3.1 also gets better support for VMware environments. Specifically, the new release will automatically provision the required VMware resources as part of the job execution task. This was also listed as an enhancement with version 3.0, but presumably it’s gotten even better. ASG is also touting new “broadcast processes,” which the company says will simplify automation and maintenance work required on all servers connected via Zena. The software can automate tasks across multiple platforms, including IBM i, z/OS, Unix, Linux, and Windows. Finally, this release improves integration at the application level. Support for applications written in .NET and Java, for Web services, and various transfer protocols (FTP, HTTP, SMTP) allow the software to automate tasks across older and newer stacks, without the need to manually write scripts, the vendor says. Ed Hallock, senior director of solutions management at ASG, says the enhancements in version 3.1 give customers a strong workload automation tool “that also incorporates traditional job scheduling methodologies.” ASG-Zena provides traditional time- and date-based scheduling capabilities, as well as newer “event-based” scheduling. The software provides a centralized console that allows administrators to manage and monitor distributed workloads running across a variety of servers. ASG-Zena runs on Windows, Unix, and Linux servers. ASG doesn’t support the software running on IBM i or z/OS, but does provide agents for managing workloads on these platforms. For more information, see www.asg.com. RELATED STORY ASG Revs Job Scheduler, Which Supports IBM i
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