A transfer of control to a batch application is intercepted, wherein a batch front-end routine receives control in place of the batch application and performs initialization processing. This initialization processing comprises issuing a DLI restart call and issuing a DLI checkpoint call. If the DLI restart call returns a checkpoint ID, then one or more databases associated with the batch application are repositioned. The transfer of control to the batch application is then resumed, whereby the batch application restarts from the checkpoint ID, if the checkpoint ID was returned by the DLI restart call, in a manner transparent to the batch application.