Open Source Job Scheduler schedulix - independIT Workload Automations (EN)

The consistent use of open source software is now part of the corporate policy in many companies and institutions. However, a suitable open source job scheduler for the automation of cross-system IT processes has been missing for a long time. schedulix provides administrators with a powerful tool for process automation in open source environments.

In larger IT environments, the BICsuite IT Workload Automation Platform has long been a household name. The BASIC Edition is provided by independIT as schedulix under the AGPL license on Github. schedulix is a professional open source job scheduler and represents an alternative to expensive commercial job scheduling solutions. Due to its modern, dynamic conception, schedulix fits effortlessly into contemporary IT systems. schedulix starts, controls, monitors and logs far more than 100,000 jobs per day and is therefore also suitable for large and complex system environments.

The open source job scheduler schedulix completes the open source stack

The lack of a powerful open source job scheduler leads to significant problems when building an open source stack in operations, which hinder the adoption of open systems. Because controlling data center or data warehouse operations requires a large number of script-driven processes that make it difficult for administrators to track processes and detect errors, these tasks previously had to be performed either with considerable manual effort or the basis of a complete open source stack was a commercial job scheduling system. The decision by independIT GmbH to release BICsuite BASIC as the Open Source Job Scheduler schedulix under the AGPL closed this gap in the basis of the Open Source world.

With the decision to release schedulix to the open source community, the founders and managing directors of independIT GmbH also want to thank the open source community.

“Without their work on the operating system, databases, web servers, development tools and much more, the creation of the BICsuite scheduling system would have been unthinkable,” explains Dieter Stubler. “With schedulix, independIT GmbH is giving its part back to the community.”

*schedulix adapts the system behavior to the current requirements and uses existing resources efficiently, for example to expand in cloud technologies*

schedulix is different from the traditional

Traditional scheduling systems work according to a predefined daily schedule, which has to be recalculated in case of disturbances or surprising requirements. This ineffective way of working is avoided by schedulix through a dynamic architecture from the ground up by constantly recalculating the consequences of all framework conditions. For this purpose, dynamic load control and load distribution are integrated in schedulix. On the one hand, this creates new possibilities to adapt the system behavior to the current requirements and to use existing resources efficiently, if necessary to extend them in the direction of the cloud. On the other hand, these factors result in higher system stability, reduced planning effort and efficient restart after errors.

To maintain transparency and flexibility and reduce susceptibility to errors, the functions required for IT automation should not be created in the processes to be controlled. The constructs required for this in the Enterprise Job Scheduling System are completely provided by schedulix: Variables and parameters, sequences, branches, loops, parallelization and synchronization, exception handling as well as modularization. schedulix reduces the effort in application development, creates transparent and manageable solutions, improves maintainability, flexibility as well as the performance of the overall system.

In schedulix, a wide variety of problems from the practice of large IT environments have found their expression. The challenges could be reduced to a few basic concepts. Their interaction allows a simple, comprehensible and robust implementation of all tasks arising in practice.

The clear concepts are also reflected in a system-wide uniform front end for operation with a standard browser. No programming or coding is required to define processes, yet Comandline tools are available. This results in a short training period and a steep learning curve for administrators and relieves the burden of development, monitoring and control of IT operations.

schedulix is the solution of choice for growing challenges that IT staffs are increasingly facing, even in medium-sized environments. This tool for administration and automation of heterogeneous system environments builds a solid foundation for facilitating the use of open source software and takes it to a new level. The solution is available for download here.