What is Job Scheduling?
The process of dividing the available resources (generally processor time) to different tasks/jobs by operating system is called Job Scheduling. Basically our system handles job queues that are waiting to be executed and are performed according to the set priority. Job scheduling make sure that all the tasks are committed on time. Operating systems like Windows, Linux, etc. feature basic Job Scheduling.
In this era, time has become the topmost priority. The explanation and importance of job scheduling is quite simple - to save time. Carrying out the tasks performed by job schedulers, manually, can be pretty hectic and prone to errors. Also, computers are used by every other person and not just tech savvies. Job Scheduling used to be quite hectic and required knowledge of scripts. But time has changed and we are gifted with technology that even a layman can understand and bring to his/her use. Job/task scheduling is no escape. VISUALCRON is one such company which excels in automation, integration and task scheduling which enables you to automate real-time scheduling.
Job Scheduling in Linux
As already mentioned, Linux facilitates Job Scheduling. As Wikipedia says - “Linux is a family of free and open-source software operating systems built around the Linux kernel.” So in Linux, many important task are to be carried out at regular intervals. Linux provides the feature of scheduling jobs in the future. Job schedulers work on various scheduling algorithms such as - Shortest Job First, (SJF) First Come, First Served (FCFS) and few others to decide which job is to be executed first. Linux provides us with utilities cron and anacron which helps us to schedule a command or a script to run at a specified time/s.
Advantages of Job Scheduling
1. Job done on time.
Job scheduling makes sure that all the scheduled tasks get executed right on time.
2. No extra memory space is required.
The basic definition of scheduling itself states that it executes jobs from the prioritized queues in the available system resources.
3. Less error-prone.
Well, humans can never be as efficient as computers as far as job scheduling of a large number of tasks is concerned. Schedulers make sure to spot the errors, report accordingly and provide a fix for them.
4. Reduces manual labour.
The tasks carried out by schedulers, when performed manually becomes quite hectic and requires considerate amount of manual labour.
The concept of job scheduling was quite useful a few years ago but along with advancement in technology, a fine refinement has been brought to job scheduling. Real-time scheduling is the new big thing and are proving themselves to be quite helpful.
Job scheduling made simple with easy to use interface with no prior programming language experience, easy error handling, etc. provided by companies like VisualCron.