Finding a good solution to do a simple task

I wrote some in-container automation tests which needs to be driven by some outside container client applications. This series of automation tests each would create some test data based on a XML file, wait till the client application finish executing the tests, then move onto its next series. The client application, use this same XML file to generate a property file as its input.

Basically I need to automation the entire test execution process. And one way I can think of is the following. Use some scripting language to perform the following tasks

1. Take this XML file, generate the client property file.
2. Start the client application with the property file generated above as the input.
3. Start the in-container automation tests.
4. Check if the in-container automation tests finish, if so, move to 5, otherwise loop in 4.
5. Stop the client application started in 2.
6. Repeat these step with the next test series.

So far this seems a practical solution, but the efforts involved in creating these trival tasks for a non-shell programmer (like myself) is much more than creating this set of in-container automation programs.

If somehow the in-container programs can trigger out-side containers processes, the above tasks can be much simpler, at least all can be done in Java.