Automic Automation Reviews

We use Automic to coordinate batch processes for Oracle Utilities products like customer care and billing, and work and asset management. It helps us load customer data, meter reads, and process billing. We also use it to make calls to Solar processes and for file transfers across servers.

I like the GUI interface of Automic. We use it to coordinate batch processes and it's beneficial for orchestrating various processes, especially in the context of Oracle Utilities products.

Automic's database structure is not intuitive. When upgrading, the system breaks down frequently and we require a lot of support. More visual aids in the documentation would be helpful.

Probably four or five years, but I started focusing on it more in the last two or three years.

It's pretty stable once you fix the initial issues after deployment.

Scalability is good.

They are good and helpful, but many issues require support tickets due to inadequate documentation.

Positive

The pricing has been increasing significantly over the years, raising operational costs instead of reducing them.

We've been looking into other possible replacements because the pricing with Broadcom has increased significantly.

I would rate Automic a six due to its high price and other issues. For new users, I'd advise taking training courses and learning to read log files effectively.

We use the solution across every business area for site switches, backups, batch scheduling, and other tasks.

We implemented the solution about 20 years ago when we switched from our legacy mainframe systems. We were looking for a scheduler to replace the one in our new SAP systems, as the SAP system scheduler wasn't considered robust enough. The solution was chosen to replace SAP scheduling at that time.

What I like most about Automic Automation is its flexibility to work across multiple platforms, such as Windows, Linux, and SAP environments. The ease of switching from one environment to another is particularly useful. I like its calendars and workflows. 

The support has declined somewhat over the years due to various takeovers. It's not as personal as it used to be.

I've been using Automic Automation since 2005 for about 19 years.

I rate the solution's stability a nine out of ten. 

I wouldn't rate the solution's scalability highly, but that's more due to our company's structure than its capabilities. We often don't know what's coming for our company in advance, so we might not always consider using it for new projects even though we probably could.

We initially bought it for SAP scheduling but soon found it could do many other things. For example, we use it for site switches between our two data centers, testing our critical systems once or twice a year. In the first two years of using it, our usage grew by about 400%.

Currently, we have about 400 agents and three environments: development, test, and production. We have approximately 150 users.

As for scalability, we currently only use about 20% of the CPU capacity, so there's plenty of room for growth. If we need to add more jobs or increase the workload, it's scalable. Increasing memory, disk space, or servers is also easy.

Before Automic Automation, we used a solution called ControlM, though I wasn't with the company then.

The deployment of Automic Automation was fairly straightforward, though we initially had a few minor issues. It took about a year before it went live, and only three or four people were involved in the process.

The solution does require daily maintenance, which mostly involves looking at the database and archiving older data to keep it efficient.

We've seen a return on investment, particularly in terms of resources. For example, when we have an outage for an upgrade, the manual implications would be vast without Automic Automation. If we were to ask everyone to do the tasks it does manually, we would need a lot more people.

The solution seems expensive to me, but it does the job well.

We did face some challenges during the early implementation about 17 years ago. There were occasions when jobs replicated themselves and filled up the database, causing system downtime. However, we've since fixed these issues.

I would recommend Automic Automation to other users mainly because of its ability to work in multiple platform environments. For example, it's effortless to move files from a Windows system to a Linux system.

Overall, I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. I think it's a very good product.

In the past, I had used Automic Automation during the time when it was called UC4 for month-end close automation since we were running a shared business service involving an institution related to national healthcare. Our company used to support around 130 to 140 odd hospitals, causing a peak demand for the tool Oracle E-Business Suite, which became tedious for us. Later on, we introduced Automic Automation and automated the organization's entire processes, after which there were only two people required to monitor the month-end close automation since everything else had been automated. In the beginning, it was called Appworx, and then UC4. The areas of automation I had worked on in the past were successful. At present, I might have an opportunity to again work with Automic Automation.

The tool's scheduling capabilities allow the tool to do output scans based on the report outputs. One can read the output scans, put them into variables, and do some clever calculations for decision-making which a human can do in a normal setting. Automic Automation provides its users with flexibility and a flow chart visibility, allowing users to see how things are moving if there is a need for some action before resuming the workflow. The visibility Automic Automation provides across platforms worked well for our team in the past.

People have started moving to Fusion Cloud or the cloud in general. I wonder how the software works with Fusion Cloud since I don't know if the tool is cloud compatible. I also wonder if the integration of the tool with the cloud is done via YC or if the product has an integration capability that allows it to integrate into an Oracle Cloud. My main concern is whether Automic Automation is ready for the future.

Since I use Automic Automation on-premises, I need some clarity on whether the product can also be used on the cloud.

The tool lacks interoperability features. I would like to add an interoperability feature to Automic Automation, allowing one access to some messaging functionalities. I would like to see something in the product similar to Kafka. The tool should allow one to add subscribers. The tool would become very easy to use when you have multiple clouds in the mix, along with the interoperability feature. The aforementioned set of features in the tool can make it easy to register your different cloud consumers into the tool itself, and then based on the process, it could automatically go to the respective tool for the respective cloud.

I have experience with Automic Automation for three to four years. I am a user of the product.

It was a pretty stable tool. Now when you are dependent upon automation, the knowledge to do the month-end close process is not needed and goes away since you can automate it. There aren't any businesses supporting the automation of the month-end close very aggressively, and because of this, I don't have instances where we weren't able to complete it on a timely basis.

It was a scalable solution. We used the tool for its API capabilities, after which we could integrate it with other applications.

I contacted the solution's technical support since we did have a maintenance contract with them. If we needed any advice or if there was any specific issue, we used to raise a kind of a ticket with them, which the support used to address on a priority basis. The solution's technical support has always been excellent.

I had previously used Control-M and TIBCO. I found Automic Automation to be the best of all the tools I have used.

The initial setup was very easy. For setup, out-of-the-box APIs were there for our leverage which automatically had all your concurrent jobs, and everything was available by default in the tool because of which putting it into a chain, thread, or flowchart was very easy.

The solution was deployed on-premises.

Our company had licenses for five users at that moment in time when it was pretty okay. Our company had paid around 5,000 to 6,000 USD per license for a month.

I would definitely recommend the solution to those planning to use it.

The use cases of Automic Automation were that we were supporting around 140 odd hospitals. We had a little bit of peak resource demand when we were doing it manually. We had approximately a person handling two setup boxes, because of which we had a peak in resource demand that went up to 70 people, especially during the month's end. By introducing Automic Automation, we were able to do all of the work for 140 hospitals using two people for primarily monitoring the tool and were not doing any work manually. I think we got a kind of huge gain, though we had to pay the two people monitoring the tool for their overtime.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We can automate nearly all business processes except for real-time processes using Automic Automation.

Ten years ago, I was first introduced to Automic Automation during a migration project for a major bank. Their legacy system lacked SAP integration, which Automic Automation provided, necessitating the switch.

Our customers utilize Automic Automation in a hybrid environment that encompasses both on-premises and cloud-based infrastructures.

Overall, Automic Automation offers excellent functionality and is an outstanding product in the market. Despite its limitations, it remains one of the best options available. While scripting languages can be used to implement special functionality, this approach is outdated. For more modern and efficient implementation, Python or custom scripting languages tailored to specific workflows are preferable.

Reducing job and workload failure rates across multiple cloud environments is of utmost importance. Workflows and workload engines are vital components for a wide range of processes, not only in business and IT but also in healthcare. Managing resource-intensive workflow engineering businesses also necessitates effective workflow automation. In technical settings, such as clinics, workflows, and processes can be automated using virtual engines. We are at the early stages of these developments, and a unified approach between business, IT, and technical teams is crucial for success. Two key considerations are the flow and dependencies between activities, and the bulk load management, which involves controlling resource consumption.

Automic  Automation has been instrumental in enhancing our compliance processes. The software effectively automates multi-step processes, making them more efficient and streamlined. Compliance processes are particularly well-suited for redesign and segmentation into smaller components. While compliance processes share similarities with other processes, such as login procedures, they hold a unique importance akin to security. Virtual engines have the potential to automate and control a wide range of processes, including security, compliance, and even genetic analysis. However, their implementation in these areas is still in its early stages. Additionally, virtual engines can facilitate complex workflows, such as channel analysis.

With Automic Automation for traditional IT, achieving SLAs is assured. This is because we maintain complete control over our workflow. When an issue arises, we can quickly pinpoint the cause, whether it's a failed job or another factor. Event processing provides similar visibility, offering an alternative perspective on the situation. While some advocate for workflows as the primary means of SLA fulfillment, this approach is not entirely comprehensive. The most effective strategy for achieving SLAs involves a combination of event management and ITSM infrastructure.

Automic Automation is a highly complex yet versatile tool.

Due to Automic Automation's proprietary scripting language, upgrading it can be extremely challenging, unlike other workflow automation products that offer seamless migration. This inflexibility makes Automic Automation the most complex and restrictive solution in the market. Choosing Automic Automation essentially locks us into their ecosystem, making it nearly impossible to switch to a different product. Therefore, I strongly advise against using Automic Automation.

Automic Automation's AI capabilities are limited. Most traditional workflow products lack robust support for AI workflows. Airflow might be a suitable option for AI workflows. However, if real-time AI processing is required, a different product altogether is necessary. For example, in the field of genetics, if a workflow involves thousands of jobs, traditional workflow products such as Automic Automation may struggle to handle such a large workload. The maximum capacity of these products might be around 1,000 or 2,000 jobs. In contrast, a genetic workflow could involve up to 100,000 jobs, requiring a completely different workflow product specifically designed for such large-scale processing.

Mainstream workflow products like Automic Automation offer similar functionalities and are widely used around the globe. These products typically check for process completion every second. However, in high-performance computing and emerging fields like medicine or ophthalmology, we need to control thousands of jobs simultaneously, requiring millisecond-level process completion checks. To achieve this, we can store event data in databases or perform on-the-fly checks. Additionally, we need to integrate workflow control with workload management to prevent machine overload. These requirements make it unsuitable for tasks like controlling genomic workflows.

I have been using Automic Automation for over ten years.

Automic Automation's technical support, like that of many other companies, is inadequate due to their outsourcing practices. In an effort to cut costs, they relocated their support staff to India. The best technical support I've ever received came from Israel. Many Israeli products, such as those from Mellanox, exude a similar level of quality. Mellanox, now owned by NVIDIA, resolved complex issues for me within a couple of days. When I encountered problems with Cisco switches, it took weeks to find a solution. I had to communicate with someone in India, then return to development, and so on. It's preferable to avoid discussing this issue altogether. It's a common problem among IT companies. They want to transfer their first and second-level support to India, with third-level support potentially remaining in the United States or near the product's development location. In general, I would advise disregarding support that lacks engineering expertise. They are incapable of resolving any issues.

The installation of Automic Automation is complex due to the lack of full automation in both the installation and distribution processes.

The pricing of Automic Automation varies depending on the specific contract terms. While one of our customers in the banking industry has secured a favorable contract with Automic Automation compared to other scheduling solutions, new contracts for Automic Automation tend to be on the higher end of the pricing spectrum.

I would rate Automic Automation nine out of ten. The product is very good, but I would not buy it because I would be too limited by the scripting language. I would be locked into using this vendor indefinitely, potentially for the next two hundred years.

Two of our customers are still using Automic Automation because it is too complex and expensive to migrate over to another solution. The main problem is the script language. In order to migrate, the entire workflow would need to be redesigned.

Automic Automation provides exceptional visibility and control across internal operating platforms. Its scripting language offers remarkable flexibility. However, due to vendor lock-in, I would not recommend its adoption. Automic's inability to support migration to other vendors presents a significant drawback. Although the product boasts a wide range of features and is currently undergoing improvement, its inflexibility in terms of migration remains a major concern. For new projects, I would recommend considering alternative solutions such as Control-M or Tivoli, which offer greater flexibility and easier migration capabilities.

While supporting multiple platforms is a common feature among mainstream schedulers, Automic Automation's ability to do so is not a significant differentiator. Even the most widely used schedulers can encounter challenges with Windows, but we can devise a solution to address these issues.

Encompassing all environments, the customer aims to automate their IT infrastructure, virtual systems, and all processing operations. This automation spans from mainframe legacy systems to current Unix and Linux environments. A workflow system will be employed to automate critical processes.

The necessity of utilizing Automic Automation on both cloud and on-premises environments is contingent upon specific customer requirements. While some organizations, particularly those in the government and financial sectors, may prefer an on-premises approach, others may embrace cloud-based solutions or a hybrid model that integrates both cloud and on-premises infrastructure.

As we strive for a comprehensive automation solution, the ability to monitor automation across multiple environments becomes increasingly intricate. This poses a significant challenge, prompting traditional automation products like Ansible and Terraform to incorporate workflow capabilities. For instance, IBM has integrated workflows into Ansible, necessitating the use of a database to store these web flows. To illustrate, IBM enhanced Ansible by incorporating a workflow engine and a database. Similarly, other automation products such as Terraform and others are adopting similar strategies, integrating virtual engines within their products.

Every workflow product requires maintenance.

Automic Automation aims to expand into AI and other emerging fields in the future. However, current limitations hinder their progress. Instead of pursuing these advancements, they should focus on developing new products for AI, genomics, and HPC. These new solutions could potentially replace mainstream schedulers for traditional applications like SAP, Informatica, Automic, and Control-M. While Automic Automation remains a viable solution for existing applications, alternative products are better suited for emerging technologies.

During the closing of business processes, it does provide the interface you require to interact with, including various systems, operating systems, databases, customer services, and so forth. It is very, very good. I'm quite pleased with it. I stay in very close contact with bank operators since they have to close the business on a daily basis.

The USB port is okay. 

The product in general, is okay. I do appreciate it from an architecture point of view. 

The most important and critical process business in the bank, including COB, close of business, which has to run on a daily basis, is automated. This is the most critical and the most important business process in the bank. 

The electronic work order combinations have the ability to scale and handle large volumes of data. So far, it's fine, as of right now. We don't have huge amounts of data. The amount of backups involved is quite limited, and for the amount of data exchange, it's actually pretty low. 

It is easy to manage complex workloads using automatic workflow automation. I would rate it above average. It's far from perfect. However, it's above average.

It's good for managing processes that span multiple operating platforms. We have very good integrations between everything. We have multiple agents surrounding only Nutanix. I'm happy with that.

Automic Automation helped improve our compliance processes. For example, we have to prove that we do a backup or daily backup, and so forth. It is very easy to extract the backup report and the enterprise report. Whenever we have a compliance audit, I can simply send those outputs and everything is fine.

The only thing I'm actually not satisfied with is, during the COB, the use of processes makes time estimation for the flow completion harder. Most of the time, it is not accurate, and it's actually very frustrating for the operators since they have to run the COB. They have to connect many people each and every day to run the closed business for the core banking system for the production environment and also for the testing environment. Since they have to work in shifts, the first thing they are looking at is whenever they are going to complete the task. I'm not sure what data they use to make time estimates. However, most of the time it is not accurate. It's either way too long or way too short.

I've used the solution for a while. I've used it for more than three years - almost four, in fact. 

I consider the solution stable. 

We have 20 to 30 people using the solution right now. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

To some extent, I provide support myself. Whenever I need additional support, I can go to our business partner, a local company, and they can help. They've been very nice and helpful. 

I'm also familiar with Control M. I prefer Automic as it has multiple interfaces and capabilities to interact with various types of systems - even old, legacy databases. 

I handled the initial setup, including handling the requirements and infrastructure.

When we installed the solution two years ago, we installed the latest versions - whatever was available at that time. 

The implementation wasn't easy. However, I had local partners from a local company to assist with the setup. It would be difficult for inexperienced people to install it alone. They have to understand the concept. They have to understand the architecture and be able to manage the credentials required to authenticate. I had these problems, for example, when I set up the UC port.

I handled the implementation by myself.

I worked with local partners during implementation. They had a very good background.

I can't speak to the exact pricing. I don't manage that. 

While I did not evaluate other options, it's my understanding that my managers did. I don't have any details, however.

We are Broadcom customers. 

We are not actually using them as cloud capabilities. We are only running on-premises.

We have yet to use any AI functionality. However, we are interested in the possibilities. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

We use the solution to automate business processes, including those in SAP systems, mainframes, host systems, and so on. Most of our environments are automated, from Windows to Unix. 

It's a powerful product.

I'm very familiar with the interface. It's easy to use. It's very intuitive and useful.

Nearly all of our business processes are automated using this product. It's not really complex. It has drag-and-drop capabilities. You can take an SAP job and move it into the workflow.

The scalability is great.

There's good visibility across operating platforms. You can see system states and logs, et cetera. It's powerful. You can analyze log files and get a good view of them. I'm not as familiar with the data analysis part, however, as I don't really use it. 

The solution offers connectivity in any direction. We have an old mainframe and have connectivity with special systems, SAP, and data connectors. 

It's helped us reduce workload failure across multiple cloud environments by 90%.

With this solution, we've been able to free up staff for other projects or tasks. The automation makes it possible to save time on various tasks.

We've been able to reduce operational costs thanks to its virtual presence.  

The solution could be improved by offering better management. They need to make it more intuitive. It would be helpful if they could visually flag items. You do need to log into the system and have some technical knowledge.

It would be better if it was easier to view the automated processes.

I've been using the solution for nearly 15 years.

The stability is good. I'd rate it seven out of ten. 

The solution scales well. You can scale from the system nodes, and there is no limit to the workload. I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. 

Technical support could be better. However, for the most part, it's okay. The speed of response is pretty fast.

Neutral

We did previously use a different solution. We switched to the brand leader in our region. The look and feel of the interface are very good in comparison.

We do help our customers implement the product. The implementation's level of difficulty depends on what has to be automated. The tool itself isn't rocket science; however, complex automation may exist. If there's a big ETL or data warehouse with thousands of jobs, it can get complex. 

There is a bit of maintenance needed, for example, around security updates. 

There are different licensing models, so the solution is very flexible and can align with customer needs. The pricing itself is cheaper than BMC and other options. 

We're a consulting company and run a lot of POCs with customers looking for other solutions. 

We're a Broadcom partner. 

The solution has helped us with our ability to meet our SLAs.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Our company uses the solution to run scripts for customers. For each use case, we create a description and use it with the agent to schedule run times. 

Our team size ranges from 40 to 50 people and varies across clients or use cases. 

The solution includes many features and is scalable and stable. 

The automation tool provides scripting that is easy to convert for specific requirements. 

The pricing has the potential to be high because it is based on the number of servers and agents. 

I have been using the solution for five years. 

The solution's stability is better than other products. We do not see the solution fail much at all. 

We had issues with other products where servers would go down or items needed to be fixed and that caused struggles. 

The solution is scalable. 

I worked closely with technical support for overall assistance during my first installation and they were dedicated and helpful. 

I have not needed support for issues but am currently working with them to complete another installation. 

Sometimes support leaves out details, but they do help a lot with tools. 

I rate technical support an eight out of ten. 

Positive

The ease of setup depends on the person who handles it. The setup is a bit different because it includes four or five components that require separate installations. There are various steps and processes to follow. If you have knowledge of the solution, then setup is easy. 

Typical setups take 14 to 16 hours for server and data installations. 

We implement the solution for customers. 

The pricing is based on the number of servers and agents. 

Our developers chose the solution because of its scalability, stability, and features. Technical support is also much better than what competitors offer.

The solution allows us to do everything we want. We can use it for smaller items or large-scale projects with no problems. 

It is important to understand workload automation and how the solution functions. Work with your customer to determine the infrastructure and number of agents or servers. Create an infrastructure table and then starting installing to those specifications. 

I rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

I use Automic Workload Automation for SAP-related use cases. They are primarily functional and nonfunctional job executions for SAP Windows Unique. So, mainly for a business process or business functions, job execution, and creating dependencies related to retail like Oracle and SAP jobs execution.

I like that Automic Workload Automation has many features compared to other products. There are a lot of good features, and architecture-wise there is a valuable client concept. The architecture and the multi-tenancy is a multi-client concept. That is also useful.

The manage file transfer area could be better. The file transfer area needs improvement. Other products like Control-M have some good features in this area.

I have been working with Automic Workload Automation for the last ten years.

Automic Workload Automation is a stable solution. It's good because, architecture-wise, it has high reliability. So, we recommend it to our customers and ask them to use two or three-node architecture. If one goes down, the other should be up. So, two or three-node architecture is stable.

Automic Workload Automation is a scalable solution. Scalability depends on the architecture. We are currently running 10,000 jobs or 20,000 jobs with two-node architecture. If we want to add one node or if we're going to add more resources, you can do it online. You do not need any downtime. You can run thousands of pages and millions of jobs.

Technical support is good. I worked with a particular dedicated client, and we had to reach out to Broadcom once or twice a month for help. Whenever we raised a ticket, they responded within a day or the next day. Most of the time, it wasn't even an urgent issue.

Nowadays, they have very helpful knowledge articles. If I have an error and they share some knowledge articles, I get the solution through those articles. They are helpful.

The initial setup is straightforward. It hardly takes half an hour or one hour, but small components like agents must be installed later. The initial fresh installation will take about one hour.

I'm not sure about licensing costs, but I know the base price is about $3,000, and you can get some kind of discount per node.

I would tell potential customers that they must use third-party software like Control-M, Stonebranch, AutoSys, or Tidal to migrate to Automic Workload Automation. 

If we compare it to any market-leading software, like Control-M BMC, Automic has the same capability, but Automic provides everything as a bundled product. Others like BMC sell their products in different modules. So, you have to buy the license, and on top of that, you have to buy the separate modules. 

I would also tell potential users that with competing products, they need a job-based license if they plan to scale up and avoid penalization. But as Automic is node-based, there will be no penalty if you are running 5,000 jobs today and 6,000 jobs tomorrow. It'll be the same.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Automic Workload Automation a seven.