Scheduling, operations management and compliance

Despite the fact that today's systems are almost always embedded in networks, native scheduling facilities take little account of batch job scheduling and print spooling and output management. As a result, support staff then overcome the weakness with inventive local workarounds, which conceal it.

But circumstances have changed and at least one recent, at first sight unconnected development will be the reason why many organisations make important changes in this area. The new pressure comes from the unlikely source of legislation on corporate governance.

Said Chris Anderson, managing director of the SPI Group, distributor of OSM's suite of software products, including COSbatch and COSprint: "There have of course always been good reasons to adopt commercial-strength scheduling packages.

"In the case of output management, there is a strong cost reduction argument based on the fact that printed output costs commercial organisations between 1% and 3% of annual revenues. Any significant reduction in printing costs can therefore make a significant difference to company profitability and release funds for further IT investment," continued Anderson.

"Industry analysts agree that of all the network management and systems management software options, automated job scheduling software ranks among the most proven in terms of ROI and maturity of the offerings. Gartner cites it as the best option in the context of its network and systems management lifecycle."

When a reduction in costs can be combined with a marked improvement in service levels, a forceful argument then exists for acquiring the enabling technology. The recent burst of legislation, such as Sarbanes-Oxley in the US, Basel II in the UK and Europe and the recent Companies Act 2004 in the UK, provide an additional incentive for an organisation to control access to critical output and audit its distribution.

Of concern are the qualitative issues that surround output - access security of electronic documents is a concern due to the private nature of certain documents, such as HR information and the necessity for compliance, to ensure integrity, of any of the tough legislative acts.

According to Anderson, by implementing automated batch job scheduling, using automation such as COSbatch and COSprint, human error is reduced significantly and access control strengthened. This can be reinforced by the ability to encapsulate interactive processes so that all operations policies are enforced by software and all are monitored and audited.

These recent legislation requirements impose a duty on corporate managers to demonstrate to shareholders not only that they have assessed the risks pertaining to limit or remove the exposure, but can also produce evidence of having taken action to limit or remove the exposure. The only certain way to collect and keep all evidence is to use automation software, which both manages the process and keep a rigorous audit trail of all jobs run.

The investment made to meet legislation can additionally provide both a positive return and useful security benefits that any company would value.