What is a Job?

A Rundeck / Runbook Automation Job is a unit that encapsulates a series of ordered steps to solve a problem or perform a task. Some example tasks include provisioning, security, software updates/deployment, change configs, opening ports, and more.

Jobs are a critical component of any Rundeck / Runbook Automation Project since they allow users to run powerful workflows that span the different scripts, tools, APIs, and system commands to standardize operations tasks. Jobs offer a way to package up a process and the Rundeck / Runbook Automation project acts as a central place to store jobs.

Why create a Job?

• If certain command executions are done repeatedly and represent a routine procedure users can create a Job to standardize and automate the process to make it faster to carry out and more consistent each time it runs.
  
• Another user in your group needs a simple self-service interface to run a job across a set of nodes. Creating a job and giving the user self-service access to the job reduces escalations and the time spent waiting by empowering other teams to safely take action and complete tasks without operations assistance.
  
• Routine processes need to be encapsulated and become the basis for other routine procedures. Standardizing operations tasks in jobs can help create a basis for how teams develop automation.