As data increase in value in today’s digital world, it’s crucial to know how your business can gather and store them effectively. Likewise, the threat of data breaches has taught businesses to be extra careful with how they handle, store, and share their data internally and externally.
When we talk about data processing, batch processing has remained a popular topic despite the widespread acceptance of cloud-based storage as a critical component to ensure data management is safe, reliable, and easy to use.
What Is Batch Processing?
Batch processing is a method of handling massive amounts of data at once efficiently and economically. It is also known as job scheduling and workload automation. To run batch operations, you need software for batch automation.
During the process, a computer works on many tasks at once. Thus, there will be little or no human intervention to mess up any job along the way.
Batch processing jobs are run on a schedule or as needed. Big businesses employ batch processing technologies to complete big job orders effectively. Banks, healthcare facilities, and accounting firms are some industries where batch processing is beneficial. Report generation occurs after the close of each business day and the completion of credit card transactions. Then, utility providers will collect customer consumption data and bill them via batch processing.
Now let’s learn about the pros and cons of batch processing.
Pros
- Cost-Efficiency
Batch processing eliminates the need for human supervision of physical hardware, such as computers, which reduces operational costs associated with staffing and equipment. In addition, staff can redirect their priority to other responsibilities because batch processing should be productive and error-free.
- Speed
A batch job is a computer file with instructions to run programs and read batched input data. Moreover, batch tasks automate scheduling and planning.
An operator submits a batch job as a one-time event or scheduled task. The operator can set end-of-month batch processes to print management reports. Hence, most batch processes are fully automated and run 24/7.
- Improved Data Quality
Batch processing helps reduce the risk of errors by automating most or all of the processing steps and limiting user involvement. This increases precision and accuracy to reach a greater level of data quality.
- Utilization Of Existing Computing Resources
Allowing data to be processed when the system is not in high demand maximizes the existing system’s efficiency.
Because batch processing can be triggered or automated to execute when the system reaches a given point in bandwidth, there is less of a need to buy new systems. Therefore, existing resources are used more intelligently.
Cons
Despite being a more effective method for shortening the amount of time required to set up the system, batch processing has a few drawbacks:
- Each batch can be subjected to laborious quality control and guarantees, resulting in more employee downtime.
- There could be a rise in the expenses incurred for storing large quantities of produced goods.
- Errors found in a batch can affect scheduling and finances.
- Downtime can happen; so, specialized machinery would require setting adjustments. This will affect workers who don’t contribute much to the process and may be regarded as inefficient by an operation entirely handled by machines.
- Reprocessing a batch is more expensive than reprocessing a single item. In worst-case scenarios, where transactions must keep an inherent order, an expensive and perhaps logically difficult rollback procedure can happen.
- Batch processing tools frequently have restricted functionality and scope. When integrating the batch system with new data sources, it is often necessary to use custom scripts, which can raise cybersecurity problems if the processed data include sensitive information.
Batch Processing In Automation Today
Batch processing is evolving. Furthermore, cloud technology has changed almost all forms of processing by allowing application data to be pooled, integrated, and stored remotely. The most significant change in batch processing is the data migration from onsite to distributed systems, where data warehouses and data lakes may operate in multiple places worldwide.
Batch processing remains important today, despite all the changes brought about by the development of cloud-native technologies and storage. The well-known ETL (extract, load, and transform) process of transporting data is, in essence, batch processing in and of itself. We may have welcomed other methods, but it is not likely to disappear soon.
Conclusion
There was a time when batch processing was an immobile operation, but that is no longer the case. Over time, it has evolved into a more efficient, dependable, systematic, and agile method most industries still rely on today.
