Upsides and Downsides

Computerworld - Here's what a few IT managers say they love - and hate - about their job schedulers:
Eric Gephart Senior network recovery manager, Smartworks.com Inc., Dayton, Ohio
Scheduler: SysAdmiral from Tidal Software Inc.
LOVE: "When you're setting up the job, it's very granular, very detailed. But once you have it set up, it takes care of itself - you don't have to worry about it. We're using NetIQ at Smartworks; Tidal's is the only scheduler that integrates with NetIQ, which is big for us."
HATE: "The software is expensive. It's the Cadillac version of scheduling software."

Linda Johnson Applications support engineer, Wisconsin Department of Corrections, Madison, Wis.
Scheduler: Argent Job Scheduler from Argent Software Inc.
LOVE: "It's fast and easy. It took less than 30 seconds to install the software, and I had it running jobs in less than 20 minutes."
HATE: "It doesn't integrate directly with our mainframe scheduling software, but there are many work-arounds for that."

Andrew Cunningham Manager of global management systems, Reuters Group PLC, London
Scheduler: Tivoli Workload Manager from Tivoli Systems Inc. and Tivoli Workload Scheduler
LOVE: "Its fault tolerance. We use it to centrally schedule backups. If that central connection goes down, [the scheduler] on the client device will continue to operate and schedule to make sure the backups take place."
HATE: "It doesn't directly support VMS. There is an agent for Tivoli Workload Scheduler, written by Heroix [Corp.], but it doesn't have fault-tolerance capability, so we use DEC Scheduler instead."
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• Getting The Job Done