News

Scheduling and Workload Automation for Windows Azure

Dynamically allocate Azure cloud resources to match workload processing requirements.

• By Christa Ayer
• 09/17/2013

Advanced Systems Concepts, Inc. has debuted ActiveBatch Extension for Azure, an add-on to its ActiveBatch Version 9 workload automation platform. ActiveBatch Extension for Azure lets IT provision and manage Azure instances within workflows that direct other applications, platforms, and process types, all from a single interface.

Core to the ActiveBatch technology is its Smart Queue functionality, which provisions Azure instances automatically when workload demands exceed defined thresholds. For example, in anticipation of scheduled heavy workloads, Smart Queue will spin up new Azure instances to ensure adequate resources.

ActiveBatch Extension for Azure offers more than 60 production-ready job steps to automate various Azure tasks, including the provisioning/de-provisioning of Azure virtual machines, management of individual or groups of instances, security tasks, machine snapshots, rebooting, and the synchronizing or termination of instances.

To integrate Azure workflows with other operations throughout the enterprise, ActiveBatch's Integrated Jobs Library provides more than 400 job steps for common IT tasks within various systems, databases, and applications. For example, an administrator might launch an ActiveBatch workflow that creates an Active Directory and Exchange account then provision an Azure workstation for the onboarding of a new employee.

More details here.