Remote job entry, or Remote Batch, is the procedure for sending requests for non-interactive data processing tasks (jobs) to mainframe computers from remote workstations, and by extension the process of receiving the output from such jobs at a remote workstation.
The RJE workstation is called a remote because it usually is located some distance from the host computer. The workstation connects to the host through a modem, digital link, packet-switching network or local area network (LAN). RJE is similar to uux and SSH, except that the workstation sends a complete job stream rather than a single command and that the user typically does not receive any output until the completion of the job.
The terms Remote Batch, Remote Job System and Remote Job Processing are also used for RJE facilities.
Examples
Remote Job Entry (RJE) is also the name of an OS/360 component protocol for BSC programmable work stations; this protocol is incompatible with that used by OS/360 RJE and is the basis for protocols used for job submission from programmable work stations for, e.g., Attached Support Processor (ASP), JES2, JES3, OS/VS1 Remote Entry Services (RES), VM RSCS, as well as the later protocols for Network Job Entry (NJE)
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NETRJS is the protocol developed by the Campus Computing Network at UCLA to deliver batch jobs to the Remote Job Service (RJS) on their IBM 360 Model 91.
The 200 USER Terminal is a remote batch terminal and protocol developed by the Control Data Corporation for their CDC 6000 series and CDC 3000 series mainframe computers in the 1960s. A 200 USER Terminal consisted of a low speed punched card reader, a line printer, and a CRT operators console. It typically communicated with a remote mainframe via synchronous modem. The software subsystem on the mainframe side was called Export-Import 200, and later, the Remote Batch Facility (RBF). Other remote batch terminals using the UT200 protocol included the CDC 731, 732, and 734. Software emulators for the UT200 protocol were also written for a number of minicomputer systems.
Network Job Entry
RJE is well suited to organizations that had a single large central computer center. However, in large organizations with multiple data centers, there was an interest in a peer-to-peer transfer of, e.g., submitted jobs, printer output. Following customer requests, IBM developed a suite of facilities, derived from BITNET and VNET, known as Network Job Entry. As part of that software, IBM provided commands to transmit datasets among nodes (complexes of computers with a collective name). NJE allows a batch job to control where it would run and where its output would be processed; similarly, NJE allows an interactive user to send printed or punched output to a different node.
IBM has integrated NJE facilities into its mainframe software, and it is no longer available as separate products. However, the NJE support in JES3 requires the Batch Data Transmission (BDT) program product and the NJE support in z/VM requires the Remote Spooling Communications Subsystem (RSCS) program product. NJE supports Binary Synchronous Communications (BSC), Channel-to-channel adapter (CTCA), Systems Network Architecture (SNA) and TCP/IP connections among its nodes.