Europe’s Largest Renewable Energy Company Finds Reliable 'Power Source' in ActiveBatch(R) Job Scheduler

MORRISTOWN, N.J., April 7 /PRNewswire/ -- The frontiers of green energy are being blazed as much in the boardroom as they are in the natural world.  New technologies and new production sources require new business models.  Markets have to be developed, prices set, and distribution networks tested.  And the one resource that powers all this activity, is information.

Statkraft, Europe's largest renewable energy company, understands this better than anyone.  Based in Oslo, Norway, Statkraft develops and generates hydropower, wind power, gas power and district heating, and is a major player on the European power exchanges.  It has an installed capacity of 15,000 megawatts—enough to power roughly 12 million homes.  To create its pathways of innovation, this major alternative energy producer relies heavily on automated data collection, processing and reporting for everything from accounting and finance to production and distribution.

Since 2003, ActiveBatch®, Advanced Systems Concepts' Workload Automation and Job Scheduling software, has managed Statkraft's most critical data processing tasks.  ActiveBatch executes jobs and workflows in Statkraft's Integrated Control Center (ICC), the system at the heart of the energy producer's energy management processes.

"At the time we upgraded our ICC system from Unix to Windows servers, we set out to find a scheduler with more functionality than our Cron scheduler had," said Knut Fonn, Section Manager, Trading for Statkraft's Nordic and continental operations.  "In particular we wanted a stronger logging capability, as well as a more convenient user interface."

After looking at several alternative workload automation products, Statkraft was drawn to ActiveBatch's feature set.  "ActiveBatch is known for its stability.  It also has the logging and user-friendly interface we wanted," said Fonn.  "ActiveBatch's drag-and-drop approach to building workflows makes it easy to create and test jobs.  What's more, the dependency rules give us the flexibility we need to run complex jobs."

Proven in 37 countries and at more than 1,000 enterprise installs, ActiveBatch is a leader in cross-platform workload automation, allowing users to manage tasks involving the most common operating systems, enterprise business applications as well as Web Services.  

Its event-based architecture, combined with an Integrated Jobs Library of reusable templates and production-ready job steps, helps users quickly and efficiently expedite the IT workload automation process without having to create and maintain custom scripts.

"By implementing ActiveBatch in the analysis team, the whole process of creating and analyzing data has become much simpler to handle," explained Kenneth Andresen, Operation Manager.  "Instead of several manual operations, we're now able to automate the whole process, which reduced the risk of failure by human error.  We're also much more flexible in how we want to load-balance our runs on different servers.  This gives us a huge advantage in completing analysis results on time with the resources at hand."

Event-based scheduling, load balancing, improved service levels, reporting/alerts, and proven reliability are all reasons Statkraft has stayed with ActiveBatch.  But as the relationship with U.S.-based Advanced Systems Concepts (ASCI) has matured, Fonn and Andresen have been pleasantly surprised at the level of Professional Services support they have received.  

"Having ASCI's Professional Services team onsite during the installation helped me to learn the basics of ActiveBatch.  It was a great introduction and a real advantage in using the system," Andresen stated.  "The response time of the Professional Services Group has been exceptional as well.  I've gotten immediate help whenever I've needed it.  Twice in the last three years, ASCI consultants have been on site with us for an entire week each time.  This expertise helps me a great deal and gives me the opportunity to deliver what our business needs."

Statkraft is currently in the process of expanding its use of ActiveBatch for other automation purposes.  Said Fonn, "ActiveBatch's stability has helped make sure our systems are up to date with data collection and calculation.  Our Integrated Control Center runs 24/7, and the systems and processes ActiveBatch schedules, govern the most important energy management functions here at Statkraft."

About Advanced Systems Concepts, Inc.:

Headquartered in Morristown, New Jersey, Advanced Systems Concepts, Inc. offers many software products and options for users of Windows, UNIX, Linux, HP OpenVMS and NSK systems as well as IBM z/OS, AIX, i5OS and SCO UNIX.  These products provide answers to software developers and system managers with improved system efficiency and utilization.  Advanced Systems Concepts today has over 200,000 licenses installed and a worldwide base of customers in 37 countries around the world.  Advanced Systems Concepts is a Microsoft Independent Software Vendor and a member of the Microsoft System Center Alliance.  It is also an SAP software solution partner, an HP Business Partner, a Sun Catalyst member, an IBM Business Partner, a member of the VMware TAP program, Oracle Partner Network, an HP-UX Power Partner, and is certified Red Hat Ready.  For more information, see the company's website at http://www.advsyscon.com or call (800) 229-2724 or 1-973-539 2660.

Copyright © 2010 Advanced Systems Concepts, Inc.  ActiveBatch is a registered trademark of Advanced Systems Concepts, Inc.  Other company and/or product names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective firms.

SOURCE Advanced Systems Concepts, Inc.