A system is provided for terminating processes that are executing on a plurality of distributed computing nodes. The system comprises a batch queuing system configured to receive jobs from a user and to dispatch jobs to the distributed computing nodes. A process shutdown interface is included that is configured to receive task criteria for terminating processes corresponding to the task criteria on the distributed computing nodes. An automatic process shutdown module is in communication with the process shutdown interface. The automatic process shutdown module is configured to retrieve information based on the task criteria from the batch queuing system regarding the processing location of jobs submitted to the batch queuing system. The automatic process shutdown module is also configured to terminate the processes on the computing nodes for jobs that are identified using the information obtained from the batch queuing system.