Automic Automation Reviews

Our objective is to sell this product in the name of CA, as we are a CA partner. We are trying to develop this new solution and provide it to our customers.

It will increase all delivery due to an impact on efficiency, in terms of time and faster resources.

Time is improved because somebody does not need to tell you that they are finished for you to start. In terms of personnel, you can use less manpower resources, and this is good for the business from a cost perspective.

The most valuable feature is that it can be installed on any type of application on every kind of operating system and the agent can use it on these applications and systems.

I would like more training on workload automation, because I do not have a complete insight of the product yet.

The user interface could be a little more user-friendly, as it is not the best out there.

It is very stable. I have set up a personal environment on some virtual machines, and it was very smooth and fast. Thus, the performance is very good.

It has zero downtime, which is very good. This is impressive for anyone who wants to use this solution.

I have not tested scalability. From what I read, it has a very high scalability without downtime. 

The techncial support is very good, because I had a problem with an agent not being updated, and it was not starting. Therefore, I was having some problems, and the technical support immediately understood the problem, and helped me to resolve it.

The initial setup was quite simple because they have a manual which tells you in a simple way of how to install it step-by-step. Therefore, I didn't have any problems. You do need to have a background in operating systems, then it is not so difficult to install.

I did the initial setup myself.

CA was the only vendor on our shortlist.

We are a partner of CA technology. They let us know that they wanted us to invest in this product, particularly in Italy, because they work in Italy. That is why I started to learn this product.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: 

1. The brand.
2. Ease of use.
   

We have many systems, like SAP, Linux, and Windows systems. We use it for crossover and production, beginning from Host to SAP to Windows, to make a print page for all our users and customers. It is not possible do our jobs without automation software. Automic is a great help to us.

We have been using automation since 2003 (version 263.G). Today, we are at version 10 and looking to upgrade. However, we do not what version will to upgrade to due to our hardware requirements. We must check if what we have is okay, or if we must buy some more servers, laptops, and screens. Therefore, we are checking out versions 11 and 12, or we deciding if we should wait for 12.2. We are seeing what other are doing and determining what the problems for a migration might be.

The main things that we use it for are job control and batch. For these, it does very well.

We not use all features nor all the add-ons.

Version 10 is stable. New software never comes out without some problems. That is the problem when you go with new. Therefore, we are waiting a little bit, since it is very important that the software is stable. In the near future, we must have a stable software that we can do our job yesterday, today, and tomorrow. This is the most important thing; you must trust the software. 

When you look at other technical support hotlines, the Automic team is very good.

The hotline can take a long time. They will say, "I will take it and give it to the Level 2 support." That is okay. We do the same thing in our company, like a front office cleaning calls. I still do not like it. It means more team more time waiting for a good technical answer and solution. That is a problem. Unfortunately, we can't request having 20 technical support teams dedicated our business. 

We have using Automic for long time. From the first step, you need to have time to install it. When you want to use the entirety of Automic, it is heavy. In the beginning, our administration chief told us to use 10 percent of your time for Automic administration. Now, we are using 100 percent (our entire job); it is a full-time job.

Our systems are not that big. When we have trouble or have updates, it is a full-time job. We must talk with other teams. We must see that the hotfixes are updated. This cannot be done in ten minutes as some modules and add-ons come together, and we must see how to orchestrate it within our company. We must look at these things, which are part of the company, see how they can be used. We spend a lot of time of this.

Our customers use it to control executions of jobs on different platforms, systems, applications, and technologies. There is a huge variety.

• It reduces operational costs and increases quality.
• The problem handling is much easier than doing it manually.
• It improves the visibility of what is going on on the system. If I have a problem, it is easy to identify, understand dependencies, and identifying the root causes than just running through scripts and searching through applications or servers.

• Reliability
• Transparency
• Its processes are repeatable.
• Easy to manage.

These are the most important features.

The versioning and support for the lifecycle of Automic's developed solution is what we were missing. However, this is coming in version 12.2, so I am looking forward to seeing how it works.

If you implemented with Service Pack 4 or 5, then its fine. The first version tends to be rather unstable.

The product has huge potential. I never sold its huge potential for scalability.

If the issue is a repeatable issue known to the support team, then you can expect a prompt answer. The problem with the support is if the issue is new, then it is challenging for them.

The application is straightforward to setup. What is sometimes challenging is making the application fit into the customers' environment. They may have some restrictions and restraints that we need to consider and also need to understand how to prepare. Therefore, it is rather an organizational challenge rather than a technical one.

Our customers' environments are not manageable without Automic. Their environments are so big and complex without automating them, they would not be able to run their businesses at all.

Our customers also evaluated Tivoli and BMC. 

Definitely go for Automic.

Most important criteria when our customers are selecting a vendor: One of the outside most important features versus competitors, we are able to orchestrate control. 

We build jobs and transfer data from A to B, then start SQL jobs and customize them for our customers, etc. We automate the system for our business.

The FTP agent: We use it excessively, and the connection is easy to handle between our company and the outside.

Up until now, we have to solve many problems from the business unit to handle the connections from SFTP. We had to shut down the FTP protocol, and we had to connect the business with external partners.

• To automate the business.
• The SQL agent

I am hoping version 12.2 has everything that we need.

We have had some problems with the SQL handling that should be fixed. The calendar also has some problems in it. There are some other little problems, but they should be fixed in 12.2.

I would like to see more stability in the product and have the transition between versions be more seamless. Every time we have the same mistakes from one version to the next version. It is terrible. You have to test it every time for the same mistakes when a new version comes out. 

12.1 is very stable. We started with 10.6, which was okay. 12.0 was terrible, then we switched to 12.1, and now it is okay.

Scalability is okay. We have tried to integrate it everywhere. My boss tried to get it on everything, so we have to stop him sometimes. However, normally, it can handle everything that we have.

Support has been very good. Unfortunately, every time we message support, they tell us to scale. This is terrible. While the support is good, I do not want to scale every time. It is terrible and makes everything complicated. I want support to answer me, then I am happy. I write them an email, and every time I receive the response, "Scale it," and I hate it.

The product is okay.

We are using it for batch automation and protection. We can control and check it, which is the main thing. When the batches must be run, we need a perfect system for it to run. It must run 24 hours, seven days a week, with no interruptions.

Its benefit is time. When you have the automation going, it just runs. We have no problems with any of the automation. 

We have costs for an Oracle database, and it is a high cost. However, we think we can do this on a Windows database, which is cheaper. We will do this the next few years, so it will be better. 

We have long-time planning and forecasts. In the forecasts, we can change our workloads in the future to save us any problems. Whether it is three days or three weeks, we will regularly change our processes if that is our problem. Therefore, we can do a long time planning, if necessary.

The features of the calendar are the most valuable, then the scripting. With the scripting, we can script all things, which is a first. As far as our schedules, if we have problems, we can create our own process in the automation, which is good.

The forecast and long-term planning could be made a little better when you work with it in the future.

At the moment, the stability is good. We are experiencing a technical problem with the system, in regards to the VPN, which we hope will be fixed in the next few years.

We can expand it. We have products and software in the firm, and we do the risk management. Risk management from Atomic could be in the next year, and this will be a difficult change for us and the product which we run at the moment.

We have used technical support in the last three months. They are good. If we have problems, we can get an answer in three hours. Support is very fast.

The initial setup was complicated and difficult.

It has helped us reduce costs.

Compared to our other products, it is a good price.

We evaluate vendors every year to see if it is possible to change. We look everywhere.

We have had Atomic since 2005. It was the only software with scheduling on the mainframe for clients. 

Look at it and test it, because it is a very good product.

Currently, we build self-service for our customers. This means they come to us and ask for special solutions, then we build a generic self-service which can be used for this customer. This solution is like the action pack from the Atomic marketplace.

Currently, we can implement business flows versus workflows where the customer does not have the manpower to implement it. We use it with automation, getting more speed to solve business processes. It is also possible to eliminate median breaks. 

Most valuable is the script language that we use. There is also the opportunity to use the database information inside of the automation engine and current existing objects that you can stack against it.

I use this automation solution, because it is very flexible. This automation solution supports a lot of computer platforms. Also, a lot of operating systems are supported other than automation solutions. 

The one big advantage is the Bose-Bose implementation methods. One is with the graphical use interface, where you can use small items, and it is possible to implement via programming language, but mostly this is not the case. 

Mostly from my point of view, I need to isolate what is the use case of the customer, and what needs to be done. This is not technical.

I need better stability.

I have worked a long time with this product. Formally, it was previously known as UC4. In the past, it was more stable than now. 

As we have seen, the latest version that we checked out at our customers was Version 12. This version needs to be more stable. 

The first version and service pack, we could not use at our customers because it had special bugs and issues, and we decide to wait. 

From my point of view, the current product needs more stability.

The scalability works fine. My impression is on the implementation at the customer. If the hardware and the base implementation were implemented carefully, it scales fine because you need to take care of the database on a lower level. On the network infrastructure, if you start a lot of server nodes, then it works fine.

If I work with a customer (as a consultant), they do not want a straightforward setup. Therefore, I have not seen an out-of-the-box setup, because I have not seen a normal implementation.

We spare costs because we can realize possibilities which are not implemented in case of missing manpower. It is also possible to eliminate manpower costs in other cases, like service level support, which may no longer be necessary because of this machine. We do not need a call center because we can use machines. We can raise cases, then we do not need to pinpoint exact causes nor assign the exact responsible business unit because the machine can decide itself.

Our customers also evaluated Redwood Software. However, they do not have the same flexibility as CA.

I would recommend Automic.

Most important criteria for our customers when selecting a vendor: 

• Flexibility
• A supportive platform
• The licensing costs.

The primary use case is to automate jobs which run at night on SAP, Unix jobs, and Windows. It has performed well.

It has improved the way my organization functions, in terms of efficiency, time, and costs.

The night processing helps to have data just-in-time for the morning. It is also very important to have the possibility to create incidents or emails if there is a problem, so operations can investigate and do something.

At the moment, we are only using the workload automation and the job scheduling. I think there are more possibilities to automate and connect them to the whole business process.

The most valuable feature is it always runs things automatically that you normally have to do manually, like download files. We also use the FTP agent, where you have to download and upload files at a specific date.

The only thing that we would like improved is the FTP agent. It only supports SOCKS proxy, and we would like it to also support an HTTP proxy.

We would like the feature to implement the privileged access management. However, we have heard that it is already supported.

It is very stable.

Technical support is very good.

We had a previous solution. It was Control-M. We switched because there were some issues around the costs. Automic's costs were lower.

We had some consultants when we started with it. They gave us an introduction and training. We also have training every year at CA Automic in Nürnberg.

We did not evaluate anyone else for job scheduling.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor:

• Support
• It is a fast solution.
• The product minimizes downtime.
• Good reputation.

We use the CA Automic solution for our complete business batch. We have several use cases, depending on the subcompany. We have an ABS system with a great batch and the lean system, therefore we have three different main batches with approximately 900,000 objects in the CA system. 

We have mostly connected our complete systems on the web front-end for the customer, so they can choose their products, manage their contracts, and get a new contract. This is all put into the automation system and handled there until, at the end, we have the output for printing, then we send it back to the customer.

We are on the user side of CA, not system engineers. We control the different batches, and this way is better for handling the systems than the way that we did it before. I like the script engine of CA, where you can build everything you want. If there are features not implemented, then you can script something around it, and it works.

• The search is sometimes a little bit slow.
• The calculation of the calendars needs improvement, as I have problems from time to time.
• I am excited about the new web GUI from the B12. However, I am not sure about it, except for the main client that we had before needs improvement.

The system is very stable. I have very impressed with it. Also, it all depends on if it is Linux and Oracle or Windows and SQL. We have both in our company, and both are very stable.

We have a large batch with many objects in the CA system. Therefore, we are always at the upper end of the performance that the product can handle.

The search is sometimes very slow. I have heard in the B12 version that there is a new solution for this issue, but I don't know if it is usable because they duplicate the database and then you can search there, not the online database. We just moved to the B12 version, so we will see how it work. The rest of the performance is okay.

From what I hear, it's good support. They always try to support us in the best way. 

Last year, when moving from B8 to B10, they have changed several features. One of our highly used features was no longer available. While it had a similar name, it was a completely different function. After calling the support and checking with them, they implemented the old feature for us again on the newer version.

About 15 years ago, we had CA-7 from CA. Then, we changed to the UC4 Automic. Now, we are back to CA.

Before we have our main releases, we always check between other products for the batch. In the last few years, it has always been Automic which was best for our needs.

I have seen all different types of scheduling systems. It is the best for my company to handle.

It has an easy to handle GUI. Because of the script engine, you can do nearly everything you want. I prefer it to other solutions. 

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: It has to handle our batches, because we use many objects. It is good how we can migrate from the new tool and how much work is accepted for the migration. At the moment, we have not found anything better than the CA solution.