A developer can now employ batch Apex to build complex, long-running processes on the Force.com platform. For example, a developer could build an archiving solution that runs on a nightly basis, looking for records past a certain date and adding them to an archive. Or a developer could build a data cleansing operation that goes through all Accounts and Opportunities on a nightly basis and updates them if necessary, based on custom criteria.
Batch Apex is exposed as an interface that must be implemented by the developer. Batch jobs can be programmatically invoked at runtime using Apex.
You can only have five queued or active batch jobs at one time. You can evaluate your current count by viewing the Scheduled Jobs page in Salesforce or programmatically using SOAP API to query the AsyncapexJob object.
Batch jobs can also be programmatically scheduled to run at specific times using the Apex scheduler, or scheduled using the Schedule Apex page in the Salesforce user interface.
Useful Documentation
Attribution to: Matt Lacey
This content is remixed from stackoverflow or stackexchange. Please visit https://salesforce.stackexchange.com/questions/201