Published: 9 February 2024
Contributors: Phill Powell, Ian Smalley
A batch job is any regularly occurring automated process that groups similar tasks and performs them automatically without needing to be prompted by human interaction.
How many work hours are in the modern day? For forward-leaning companies that take full advantage of batch processing systems, there’s not much that can't be achieved. When optimized business processes are combined with the power of automation, large amounts of data can be processed, especially when multiple batch jobs are being run simultaneously.
Repetitive tasks enjoy a higher success rate when batch programs are used to aid in job scheduling. Although some human interaction is required to keep batch jobs loaded and ready to run, one of the key features of batch jobs is the fact that they don’t require constant user interaction, which also decreases the risk of operator error.
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There’s a two-part process at work in preparing batch jobs. The first is determining the necessary workflows that need to occur and loading the job queue accordingly.
Then the operating system takes over, beginning the data-processing actions that will enable the system to process large volumes of data. The job processing then pushes the high-volume data sets.
Companies can set up batch processes to happen as they need them to occur, but they are usually set up to occur automatically as either a beginning-of-day (BOD) activity or an end-of-day (EOD) activity. If you use a BOD process, it'll implement an end-of-transaction input (EOTI) before that day’s batches run. If the process takes place at the end of the day, it'll generate an end-of-financial input (EOFI) once the batch finishes running.
While batch jobs significantly increase the organization’s computing output, there are certain caveats surrounding the use of batch jobs. Depending on how and in what amount they’re being used, batch jobs can represent a significant strain on a company’s computer system.
For this reason, the running of batches is typically scheduled to coincide with a span of time when the company’s compute resources are less strained. This period is known as the batch window.
The modern batch job has roots back to the first batch jobs, in the early days of computing when punch cards were the main instrument of automation. At that time, the term “batch job” came into use and referred to the way punch cards contained various forms of data and were being used to feed directions to the mainframe computer about how that program should be run, when the program should cease running, and so forth.
The punch cards for multiple jobs were all stacked in the hopper of a card reader, with certain punch cards separating those different jobs and informing the card reader about how each individual program should be run.
This technology dates back to 1890, when a US Census Bureau worker named Herman Hollerith came up with a way to use a paper card with punched holes to designate certain information. He then created an electromechanical device that could essentially read the card and its information and send an electrical signal to a computing device for further computational use.
Hollerith later founded the Computing Tabulating Recording Company, which would become known globally by the name it still uses—International Business Machines, or IBM®.
There are three primary kinds of batch jobs:
This is your standard batch job that lives in a job queue, waiting in line with other batch jobs until it eventually gets processed based on its priority and sequence number.
In computer-speak, a “job” represents a unit of work, and when subtasks are created for that job, the original task is said to be the “parent” of the subtask—subsequently known as a “child.” A batch immediate job (child) may share many of the same attributes as its parent job. And since the job copies attributes from the parent job, it doesn’t need to wait in a job queue, so a batch immediate job gets expedited faster.
When a printing application or utility is given a print job, printer output files are created that inform the system how the job should be executed. A batch print job tracks those printer output files when a current user profile differs from the user profile that the batch print job was created under.
The following are some of the main purposes for which a batch job is used:
Batch processing is the most basic type of processing, where tasks are gathered during a period of time and are eventually run in batches. This has been the go-to choice for handling tasks where time is not a driving factor. Batch processing is perfect for generating routine reports.
Distributed processing relies upon a series of interconnected computers or computer servers working in parallel to distribute or share data processing tasks, with the goal of increasing the efficiency of big data apps and large computing systems.
Multiprocessing operates similarly to distributed processing. Like it, multiprocessing uses various processors to handle batch jobs. Unlike it, the computers are not running in parallel and are instead breaking down the required assignments and dividing them between systems.
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