Legacy Schedulers Banner

We’ve recently discussed how some companies end up with a mixed bag of workload automation (WLA) tools, and the reasons this can happen. It’s all very well talking about this after the fact, but the reality is that many businesses – all too many – are caught between the ‘old’ world and the ‘new’.

The concerns about fully migrating away from old technology will be familiar to many: data integrity is paramount, downtime is an unacceptable outcome, and security can’t be compromised at any point.

Untangling years of ad-hoc automation, scripts, processes and dependencies is already a daunting task; turning that process and institutional knowledge into new ways of working that take advantage of technology is quite another. The sheer perceived complexity of this task, combined with those other concerns, are why many businesses get caught between different technologies and workflows.

See Redwood’s Workload Automation Migration Process

With more than 50,000 employees, and as the largest operator of hotels and restaurants in the UK, Whitbread’s 1.3-million business-critical file transfers had to continue without fail each month during the company’s transition to Redwood’s RunMyJobs® scheduling. In total, Whitbread’s workload was spread across more than 800 different servers.

“Our polling services gather information from each and every one of our hotels, restaurants and coffee shops every day… It’s a very complex spiderweb of processes and dependencies,” John Fitzsimmons, Technical Program Manager at Whitbread Group PLC, says.

Worried by the pitfalls of outdated automation technology, Whitbread chose to migrate to Redwood’s RunMyJobs solution using our simplified four-step process, which includes automatically converting 90% of existing scheduling tasks.

“Our organization has an exacting process for IT transformation that involves our design authority, service integration and security teams. It demands conformity to Whitbread PMO project delivery framework and governance procedures,” Fitzsimmons explains.

Despite the scale of the operation and exacting criteria, Whitbread’s full migration took less than five months from planning through to live deployment.

“Early in the project we built, tested and migrated 1,900 scheduled business jobs away from RemoteWare and AutoSys. We finished 11 phased and grouped migrations between May and October. Since then, we’ve run almost three million jobs without a single problem or issue with RunMyJobs… We finally have our single solution.”

With 25 years’ experience, we know – and say frequentlythat simplicity should be at the forefront of any scalable activity. With the RunMyJobs by Redwood migration process, we lead by example. Don’t take our word for it though; instead, let’s leave you with Whitbread’s words:

“RunMyJobs changed a risky project into an opportunity for ongoing excellence.”

Now, that’s what we’re all about.

Try the world’s only cloud-based enterprise solution for job scheduling and process automation today. Get started now with a free trial of RunMyJobs by Redwood scheduling. You’ll be able to use the service for 30 days with support and help from Redwood.

About The Author

Devin Gharibian-Saki's Avatar

Devin Gharibian-Saki

Devin Gharibian-Saki brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise on enterprise IT, the SAP ecosystem and business process automation to his current role as SVP of Business Development and Strategy at Redwood Software. Experience within product marketing, product management and enterprise software sales enables Devin to drive strategic initiatives and alliances for the organization and unlock new business models and go-to-market strategies. Acting as an executive advocate for the customer, Devin is passionate about delivering the best solutions to make the most out of a customer’s environment. His approach centers on connecting with customers, prospects and partners to better understand how Redwood can help their digital transformation initiatives, improving their automation roadmaps by leveraging a combination of his SAP and process optimization proficiencies.

Prior to working for Redwood, Devin was an SAP Technology Consultant, working directly at SAP and at EnBW, the 3rd latest utility in Germany. Devin holds a diploma in Mathematics from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Karlsruhe, Germany and as well as two patents.

1 GARTNER is a trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. 2 Magic Quadrant is a trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates.