jobID

A JobID is a unique identifier assigned to a unit of work, or job, within a computing system, batch processing environment, or workflow platform. It is used to track, manage, and reference the job across logs, dashboards, and APIs.

Job IDs are typically created when a job is submitted. They may be numeric or alphanumeric and can include components such as timestamps or host identifiers. Formats vary by system; some use a simple numeric counter, others embed information. They are usually unique within a given queue, cluster, or system; cross-system uniqueness is not guaranteed unless a global ID service is employed.

A JobID persists for the life of the job and is often reused or released after completion according to policy. It is used to check status, fetch results, cancel, or restart the job. Logs, metrics, and monitoring dashboards are commonly indexed by the JobID, enabling users to correlate events and outputs.

In different domains, JobIDs appear in various forms. In high-performance computing clusters, schedulers like Slurm assign numeric JobIDs (for example, 123456). In cloud batch processing, IDs may be long strings that encode project and run information. Continuous integration systems use build or run numbers as identifiers. Data processing frameworks may assign application IDs such as application_123456789_0001 to track long-running tasks.

Security and governance considerations include limiting exposure of JobIDs to authorized users and services, since they can be used to access or query job details. Proper access control, auditing, and retention policies help ensure that JobIDs support efficient management without exposing sensitive system information.