JobRunr, the Java Scheduler Library, Released Version 6.0

Published on feb 6, 2023

The JobRunr Java library, designed to handle background tasks within a JVM instance, released version 6.0 after a year of development following the release of version 5.0 in March 2022.

The latest update to JobRunr introduces several new features, including JobBuilders, which enable developers to configure all aspects of a job using an API.

The server name is now visible in the dashboard, along with MDC Support for logging success and failure of jobs. In addition, Spring Boot 3 AOT is supported with a new starter.

On the performance side, JobRunr has optimized the enqueueing of jobs and integrated MicroMeter to track metrics of enqueued, failed, and successful jobs on each BackgroundJobServer, but this feature is now opt-in only. The library has also been enhanced to handle exceptions and prevent job processing in the event of a database failure.

Ronald Dehuysser created JobRunr in April 2020 and introduced it to the Java community. With minimal dependencies and low overhead, it provides a unified programming model for creating and executing background jobs. It is possible to create jobs easily using Java 8 lambdas, which can be CPU- or I/O-intensive, long-running or short-running.

Using optimistic locking, JobRunr guarantees that jobs are only executed once by a single scheduler instance. In terms of persistence, it supports both RDBMS (Postgres, MariaDB/MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, and SQLite) and NoSQL (ElasticSearch, MongoDB, and Redis). It requires only a minimal set of dependencies, including ASM, slf4j, Jackson, gson, or a JSON-B-compatible library. There is also a dashboard which allows you to view the history of jobs and control the tasks that are running in the background.

Pro version adds the ability to define priority queues and create batch background jobs.

As a result, JobRunr is a simple and effective library for handling background jobs in Java applications. A wide range of use cases can be supported by its ability to support different storage options, optimized performance, and enhanced stability. It is possible to manage the execution of background tasks using JobRunr, regardless of whether they are deployed in the cloud, on a shared hosting server or in a dedicated environment.