Patent ID: 7496761

Claim:
A method of executing a task in batch mode, the task comprising a plurality of job steps, the method comprising: creating at least one proxy account, wherein each proxy account encapsulates a credential, wherein each credential comprises an authorized user name and a password corresponding to an authorized user, wherein the credential identifies the authorized user as having authority to exercise at least one respective computer software subsystem; creating a mapping between each of the at least one proxy account and a corresponding computer subsystem, each computer subsystem comprising at least one member of a group comprising programs and services, and each computer subsystem being associated with a step of the task; creating an association between a submitting user that submits the task and the at least one proxy account; receiving the task from the submitting user; scheduling the task; causing an SQL agent to execute the task whereby the SQL agent for each step of the task: determines a current proxy account associated with a current computer subsystem associated with the step; and accesses the current computer subsystem by impersonating an authorized user corresponding to a credential encapsulated in the current proxy account using the encapsulated credential in the current proxy account.