Advanced Systems Concepts, Inc. (ASCI) is redefining the IT automation space by expanding ActiveBatch’s support of the Hadoop ecosystem and adding new features to improve workflow performance. By simplifying the integration of Hadoop components within an IT infrastructure, ActiveBatch Version 11 gets data into the hands of end users in real-time, empowering organizations to make better business decisions.

As the amount of structured and unstructured data continues to grow exponentially, companies continue to look for new and better ways to uncover usable insights. Traditionally, IT connects a variety of data sources that were not designed to work together through scripting, a time intensive and error prone process. With the latest version of ActiveBatch, the industry’s most comprehensive IT automation solution, users now have the flexibility to re-use and manage existing scripts, as well as quickly build and reliably maintain Hadoop processes with production-ready content. This significantly reduces the need to create new scripts. ActiveBatch Extension for Hadoop, along with powerful automation and scheduling capabilities, provides users with more options making it possible to automate big data in a simple, scalable and consolidated manner.

ActiveBatch Extension for Hadoop provides:

  • Production-ready content for components of the Hadoop ecosystem including HDFS, Hive, MapReduce, Spark, HBase, Pig, Sqoop, Oozie and more. With access to pre-built code that is pre-tested, the creation of workflows and workloads is simplified, enabling IT to build and automate end-to-end workflows in half the time.
  • HDFS Event Trigger brings the power of advanced event-driven automation to big data, improving time to insight by getting the latest data into the hands of the end user faster.
  • Ability for users to take full advantage of ActiveBatch’s advanced scheduling and automation functionality, including the creation of re-useable customizable templates. Job Steps can now be saved for future use, making it easy for other developers to re-use and re-purpose content, improving manageability and reducing the time spent scripting.

“By using pre-built actions, along with the ability to trigger events in real-time, IT managers have more time to take on interesting mission-critical challenges,” says Jim Manias, vice president at ASCI. “The amount of data is a roadblock, but so is the variety of systems. ActiveBatch already contains hundreds of integrations for a wide range of third-party applications to enable true end-to-end automation. Now with the addition of production-ready content for Hadoop, we continue to help developers focus more on function and less on coding.”

Additional major updates in ActiveBatch V11 include:

  • New managed file transfer (MFT) capabilities: The ability to securely and reliably exchange files is becoming more complex as the number of disparate systems increases and regulations become more stringent. As transfers often contain the same or similar parameters, re-using account objects means users can reliably build and automate complex MFT workflows using Job Steps. Advanced filtering gives users more control when restricting transfers based on factors like relative age of the file, absolute age of the file or file size. In addition, these new capabilities allow users to check to see if files were successfully transferred, let users restart a transfer if an error is detected and initiate parallel transfer capabilities. ActiveBatch’s MFT Job Steps save development time and make the maintenance of these workflows simpler, as well as increases flexibility and performance.
  • FTP File Trigger: The new FTP File Trigger makes it possible to manage processes in real-time as workflows are initiated with the creation or deletion of a file on an FTP server. This eliminates the need for IT to wait for a prerequisite action to be completed, eliminating wait time and reducing time spent managing workflows.
  • Support for Changesets: Changesets offer a clear picture of all modifications and allow IT to identify, rollback and restore any changes made within ActiveBatch. It is now easier to identify the problem if an issue occurs, and depending on what caused the issue, rollback one or all of the changes made. Users can also add comments to document the purpose of a Changeset and indicate why a set of changes were made. Changesets also add a level of checks and balances to prevent unauthorized changes and provide an audit trail to show what changes were deployed, when, why and by whom, providing a new degree of maintainability, manageability and control.