The Spring Framework for Java now has a Batch Processing Framework. Something that will always be around it seems is Batch. No matter how hard we try, things aren't always real-time and there's a need to run things in "batch"... But, this is not your mother's COBOL batch....
I'm looking forward to the Sprint.NET port of this. My old company had a poorly maintained, often forgotten asset called Batch. When the .NET framework moved forward it was always an afterthought. The real issue was, we told clients that we had this framework, it helps us deliver, but in reality, I don't believe it was used on more than 5% of all projects.
http://www.springframework.org/spring-batch