Cronacle. Introduction

Transcription

1 Cronacle An event-driven job scheduling solution, enabling systems administrators and operators to easily manage distributed and heterogeneous business systems.

2 Cronacle Making complex processes easy to manage Introduction Information Technology will continue to be the primary medium through which business is conducted. Behind us is a legacy of proprietary systems implemented to facilitate core business functions, such as accounting and financial applications. Around us are integrated packaged applications supporting manufacturing, logistics and customer relationship management demands. Ahead of us lies the challenge of effectively communicating and transacting business with external customers, suppliers and partners. The need to benefit from integrated manufacturing and distribution methods across an enterprise led to a surge of business process re-engineering which saw organizations implement advanced IT solutions, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Gaining increased market share and ensuring customer retention then took over as the key business drivers and we are now witnessing the deployment of advanced customer relationship management (CRM) and supply chain management (SCM) solutions. New ways of doing business with customers and suppliers are emerging as the Internet is adopted as the global communication network. Web Servicesbased solutions are a great example of how companies are utilizing the Internet to achieve business-to-business process integration. With each forward step, an additional layer of complexity is introduced in to the IT process and maximum business efficiency can only be realized through the functional integration of the old with the new. Disparate business processes between systems are joined together with Cronacle

3 End-to-End Business Process Integration Behind all these technological innovations, one core IT element remains, that of systems automation. Traditionally, job schedulers have been used to automate batch activities in order to meet data center needs. In today s new IT world of ERP, SCM and CRM, there are additional demands that need to be addressed in joining the disparate business processes. Industry analysts predict that over 50% of processing will still be performed in batch. Use of job schedulers has changed: They are used in business process automation, particularly in straight-through processing projects and as batch application integration tools in total business integration. Gartner, Job Scheduling Magic Quadrant Reflects New Challenges M. Govekar, January 2003 More than 70% of application integration, especially business-tobusiness, is based on batch integration. Gartner, Job Schedulers: Old Dogs Must Learn New Tricks M. Govekar, June 2001 This trend calls for an asynchronous solution that can manage a business transaction across multiple applications and companies. While application integration vendors offer solutions that automate the exchange and transformation of data between systems, they do not provide a way of handling the business processes that need to take place across these applications. Companies wanting to benefit from this new way of collaboration need an end-to-end business process management solution. Batch processing has traditionally been calendar-based, with tasks being driven from a fixed schedule. In today s world, business activities are driven by business events such as orders received or goods shipped. It is essential that any business process automation solution manages and controls the background processes required to handle these events, as well as embracing traditional job scheduling demands. What is needed is a solution to facilitate seamless inter-operation of all applications across the different technology layers, using a common end-user interface, consistent application connectors that work at all levels and business processing rules that can be modeled consistently in all environments. Batch processing still continues to fulfill its traditional role but will inevitably operate in a much more complex environment. The challenge lies in the back-end integration of Web-based solutions with legacy and ERP applications. Tighter integration is required because events that occur as part of a business transaction, such as creating a customer order, require multiple applications to complete, such as, accounting, manufacturing, shipping and warehouse management. Since business transactions can span multiple companies, the need for crossenterprise application integration becomes a necessity. The ability to integrate all your processes is essential in today s world of IT. Cronacle helps you overcome this challenge.

4 Cronacle Making complex processes easy to manage Cronacle making complex processes easy to manage Cronacle is a robust, highly scalable event-driven job-scheduling solution that enables system administrators and operators to easily manage their distributed and heterogeneous business systems. The benefits of a complete business process automation solution: Minimize turnaround time for business transactions. Automate collection, processing and distribution of business information. Leverage IT investments in existing ERP, SCM and CRM systems. Maximize return on hardware investment. Eliminate errors introduced by manual intervention. Redwood Software is the only job scheduling vendor in the Magic Quadrant that supports the J2EE application server platforms. Gartner, Job Scheduling Magic Quadrant Reflects New Challenges M. Govekar, January 2003 Maximize availability of online systems by reducing the batch window. Establish 24x7 lights-out operations environment. Redwood offers us a state of the art job scheduling solution, which allows us to achieve significant savings on maintenance and resources. Werner Brunner, Head of IT, UBS Together with our warehouse application, Cronacle is able to start processing orders as soon as they have been received and with around 5000 orders a day, this will have a significant positive impact on our business. Jörg Heinemann, SAP Basis Administrator, Actebis Get an enterprise-wide view of all job activity with Cronacle.

5 Cronacle Technology When designing Cronacle, Redwood Software adopted a fundamentally different approach to other more traditional scheduling vendors. Unlike traditional scheduling packages, which create a schedule for a particular time interval that is then loaded on a target server for processing, Cronacle provides a dynamic execution environment in which tasks are loaded on the target server at run time. This is the only architecture that provides transaction level process management, required to meet the service level needs of the business. Cronacle is equally capable of handling high volume batch, as well as single transaction application processing demands. So whether you require a suite of database update programs to be executed across a farm of parallel servers or you need to create individual packing slips repeatedly throughout the day, Cronacle is your solution. As well as offering comprehensive support for traditional job scheduling criteria, including conditional processing, multiple calendars and complex dependencies, Cronacle can be configured to trigger work based on application activity, such as business transactions, database updates or operating system events. Cronacle offers outstanding functionality and complete flexibility in supporting both traditional job scheduling as well as Cronacle is a key component of our overall IT strategy, as it co-ordinates those back-end processes that are the foundation of our system. Paul Barrette, UNIX Systems Administrator, British Columbia Pension Corporation We have come to depend on Cronacle so much for managing our back-end processing that we couldn t operate our business effectively without it. Jeff Harvey, Production Manager, The Container Store new business process integration requirements. Cronacle has been built for deployment in extremely complex as well as simple operating environments. Unmatched levels of throughput, reliability and scalability are achieved with Cronacle, while at the same time the overheads associated with configuration and administration are minimized through one integrated system design. Integrating all your business processes with Cronacle.

6 Cronacle Making complex processes easy to manage Cronacle Architecture At the heart of each Cronacle deployment is the Cronacle Repository. Details of all processing requirements, including business rules, jobs, calendar and event objects are described in the Cronacle Repository, which is continuously referenced to manage all background processing requests. These processing requests are dispatched by the Cronacle Dispatcher for execution to Cronacle Process Servers, which dynamically manage workload execution across all participating application servers. Cronacle Process Servers are in continuous communication with each other as well as with the Cronacle Repository, enabling outstanding levels of parallel processing throughput and maximum systems availability. Cronacle has evidenced itself as being more than capable of handling the largest scale enterprise and Internet application demands on a variety of platforms including UNIX, Linux, Windows NT/2000/XP, J2EE, VMS, AS/400 and z/os. Integrated dynamic network load balancing enables the automated routing of work to servers. Dynamic load balancing is based on a variety of criteria including CPU load, paging rate and availability of resources on each server. Dynamic work distribution also ensures that in the event of a server failure, processing will be automatically redistributed among the remaining active Cronacle Process Servers. The Cronacle Repository can be deployed in several fail-over configurations making sure Cronacle is available at all times. In addition to operators manually submitting jobs, Cronacle offers multiple options for scheduling workloads. Fixed calendars or calendaring rules, such as every last working day of the month, can control when processing starts. Events generated by business applications can also be used to drive workload. Jobs can be scheduled based on operating system activities such as a file transfer completing or an SNMP trap being raised with Cronacle. Cronacle can also help organizations to fully automate back-end business processing. For example, rules relating to business events, such as customer information updates from a CRM system, can be transferred for processing by an ERP package using Cronacle. In the event of a process failure, Cronacle can be deployed to automatically initiate recovery and restart procedures. If there is no known resolution to the failure, Cronacle can immediately alert systems administrators or operators via , pager or phone. SNMP traps generated by Cronacle ensure that every exception can be dealt with, while audit trails provide a comprehensive log of all processing.

7 Cronacle Explorer Cronacle Explorer offers an enterprisewide single point of control via a Windows client, as well as Web browser. From here all Cronacle activity can be configured and monitored. The Cronacle Process Monitor provides real-time information about the status of each step within each process, enabling systems administrators to control individual application processes running in realtime on any platform, at any location. The Cronacle Explorer makes it very simple to browse Cronacle Repository objects when constructing new background processes and administering existing scheduled work. You can visualize and administer schedules through an intuitive graphical interface with the Cronacle Explorer Process Flow Diagrammer. Powerful and flexible security controls can be utilized to delegate the use of Cronacle Explorer to departments around the enterprise. Authorized end-users can be empowered to work with their own jobs without having an adverse impact on other business units. Cronacle Application Extensions Additional processing flexibility is realized through Cronacle Application Extensions, which enables the use of parameters and forms. Advanced logic can be incorporated in to background procedures with parameters being used to pass data between jobs and to control process flows. Forms minimize the scope for operational errors, enabling advanced validation of parameters when a job is set up rather than when it runs. Cronacle Application Extensions extends the power and flexibility of the Cronacle environment. Cronacle Delivery Connector Reports and log files generated by jobs executing in the Cronacle environment can be managed using Cronacle Delivery Connector. End-users can subscribe to be notified immediately when a new report has been created, which can then be viewed via the Cronacle Explorer. When used in conjunction with Cronacle s granular security, Cronacle Delivery Connector can resolve the management and distribution issues associated with effectively routing reports to end-users around a large corporation. Output can be routed to a wide range of final destinations including printer, fax, recipient, Web or file server. Cronacle Application Connectors Significant background processing is required to support strategic business applications, such as ERP, CRM and SCM solutions. In many cases, this processing needs to be integrated with other batch work. Cronacle can manage processes that need to run in an application environment. Corporate investments in SAP, Oracle, Baan and PeopleSoft are managed through Cronacle s seamless interface to these solutions. Batch processing that is passed for executing in the application environment can be initiated, controlled and monitored using Cronacle Application Connectors. Cronacle was the only product on the market able to meet our specific requirements. It is an incredibly easy, intuitive product to use and work with and its integration with our businesscritical Baan application is fantastic. We are confident that it will continue to help us manage our business-critical processes well into the future. Tariq Malik, Computer Services Manager, Del Monte Foods International Cronacle s calendaring options include calendar and rules-based scheduling. Make complex business process integration a reality by taking a look at Cronacle today.

8 About Redwood Software Founded in 1993,Redwood Software prides itself in providing high quality software solutions that help businesses become more productive. All our solutions enable customers to evolve their IT investments in order to meet today s new business challenges. The complexity that comes with increased globalization, business-to-business commerce and business process re-engineering needs to be overcome. Maximum business efficiency can only be realized through the functional integration of the old with the new as each additional layer of technology is introduced. With the help of Redwood Software solutions automating IT infrastructures, organizations all over the world are achieving their business goals with greater effectiveness, quickly and with greater ease. Redwood Offices United States of America Tel: (Ext. 3) Tel: info.us@redwood.com Germany Tel: (toll free) Tel: +49 (0) info.de@redwood.com The Netherlands Tel: +31 (0) info.nl@redwood.com United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) info.uk@redwood.com Redwood is a registered trademark and Cronacle is a trademark of Redwood Software. All other products or company names mentioned are used for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners. Redwood Software All rights reserved.