Automic Automation Reviews

The primary use case for using Workload Automation is the automation of applications in different cases for business or data warehouses, controlling programs, and ERP systems (like SAP). We have also began to use it for data center automation for provisioning of virtual infrastructure.

One of the benefits is we have one view of our automated things. We do not have different automated silos. We have one view for our operators, which are doing things 24/7, and need just one interface, not multiple ones.

The main features are the enormous, stripped function, which the software provides. Also, its many different agents which are supported in different platforms. 

After the merger, it is getting more American. Now, they do not have support in French and have limited German documentation. This is a critical problem for companies who have older generations who did not have English in school.

The big pain points are the AWI and the web interface. There needs to be a change with these features.

I am a long-time customer of the solution. The older versions were very stable. Then, there was a switch to versions eight and version nine. This was a few years ago. 

I am happy that Automic understands the needs of their customers and changed their development process, because now, the application is very stable.

It is very scalable. We have in one environment one and a half to two million executions a day. We are one of their bigger customers.

There used to be custom support from Germany, which was one of the biggest features. There was a change. It was German speaking support. That was one of the things, which I am sorry to say is getting worse. They have different support centers now, and the support is worse, not better.

I understand why there was a change. There were different mergers with other companies. There were more products, like the release automation or service orchestration. There are many platforms which are supported. It is very hard for the support to support the whole thing.

When we build a new environment, I am involved. Workload Automation environment setup is smooth, but it could be smoother.

One thing which is not so smooth is CA Release Automation. When doing a PoC of CA Release Automation, and it is not so smooth to install because of the different communications between these components.

Every time there is a task which must be repeated, the solution can reduce costs. When you do it one time manually, or when you do it perhaps two times manually, it is okay. If you have to do it more than this, because of the automation, you can reduce costs.

Possibly IBM, because we are a big IBM customer.

You should have a look at Automic, but also at their competition. There are a few things which they need to change. I would not have said this a few years ago, but now they need to improve.

The primary use case is scheduling business automation. Its performance is good.

It works to automate business processes over all the systems. You have a central point where you can automate everything.

It had a big impact on time, cost, and resources because it was the first product that we used which was supported all our platforms. The biggest impact is its central point of control. We now have one point where we can see everything: The whole workflow of a business process, if it is hanging or if it is still running.

The most valuable features are that a lot systems are supported. You can use this for z/OS, Windows, Unix, SAP, etc.

The problem is when you have a major update, afterwards you have small problems. This is with every software where you have to find some solutions for your problems after updates. However, after the problems are fixed, the stability is really good.

We have some problems with updates where some functions are changed, so you have to check your whole system to see if everything is still running. The update process for us is around two months of testing and one day of updates.

The stability is good. 

Scalability is great.

We have needed the technical support, especially after updates. We also needed technical support for problems. Though most of our problems in the last few years were not based on Workload Automation, but the database that we are working in.

It takes a time until you get the right person, but when you get the right person, they are really helpful.

We were previously using CA-7.

There are a lot of new features, but we do not use them because they are too expensive. The price point could be less.

You can't go wrong with Automic, because it is supporting every common system.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: 

1. Stability.
2. Support.

We do many basic things with it for the SAP system on Windows. We also use it with many with other communication systems. For example, we sell it as an iPhone 5. 

As a system, you can examine many pictures from the company. I must catalog these pictures with the names and architects, therefore we have many file transfers. For example, we take information from the SAP system and send it to Azure from the automation engine.

Our company uses it to connect different systems. That is a big feature of the system and platform.

We are a small company. The system runs fine. We have no performance problems.

There are too many functions and features in the system. The basic must run first. Refine the basics instead of adding more features.

Now, we have version 12 running. We do not like having the newer functions, because it affects the stability. The stability must be better, and the system must work with better functionality, as we have many bugs in this version. This is not good. CA must have higher quality.

The company can expand with this product. Every time I bring in new ideas for solutions, it is with this product.

Our systems must always run. I have ideas to stabilize the system a little bit, so I contacted technical support. They have for other ideas on how to fix issues. For example, if the agent goes down, we have no chance with a standard restart to fix it, and the agent is the service manager. No one in technical support understands this question, which is not good.

The initial setup is easy and straightforward. I did it over 20 years ago.

We used CDs to install it over 20 years ago.

My boss says, "It is a little expensive." For example, I must pay a lot money if I need to have a DB agent. This is too expensive for us as a small company, so I use SQL *Plus. This costs us nothing. 

We cannot use all the functions because they are too expensive.

I must have a tool which works. I have a new version, but I have problems. That is not good.

However, if we have no problems with the quality, we will probably use the product a long time. I like this product. I know what it can do.

The primary use case is workload automation in our SAP area. The performance is fine.

We have seen improvements in time efficiency and cost resources, because we are mainly focused on the SAP area, and its automation in that part. We also have some other complex areas where we help the applications with their processes. Unfortunately, we do not use it in the automation of those parts in the infrastructure, like other companies have talked to here. Therefore, our company is still meant to be for SAP Scheduler, and not given the necessary management attention. 

It helps in the usual business, though it does not help us get in front of our competitors.

• Flexibility
• Easy to use
• Stable automation engine
• We do not have to use a broad variety of agents to connect to different types of systems.

• We would like to have some features with the AWI with the founding technique, which cannot currently be delivered. 
• We would like some advantages, which we had with the Java UI, with the automation engine.
• One topic, which we would like, is to be able to have more differentiate in the reorganization of SAP to more precisely view which types of objects and clients would be reorganized and archived. The archive file is not helpful for us. If we write the archive file, we do not use them because in the past the tools were not that satisfying. 
• Improvements also would be good in the area of performance measurement.The system overview and performance are not being measured because we can't derive any concrete information.

The stability is fine. There are always a few little parts or points with issues, but overall, it is very stable.

It is quite stable in terms of size and requirements. The stable environment does not matter that much. However, the product, with it types of agents, and the sizeable automation engine, seems to be highly scalable.

We have been satisfied with the technical consultants. We ordered them for special situations. 

Technical support is different. Sometimes it is fast and very helpful, sometimes it seems to be bureaucratic and slow. It depends on the questions. Over the last few years, we have noticed it worsening. Ten years ago, there was more personal contact. We had the feeling that the support was much more involved in the system and better informed in the topics. Because of the very high speed of growth, there are only a few dozen of people with ten years of experience, which is another problem of size.

Initial reason was the projects which from SAP R2 to R3. That was the reason why they looked for a different scheduling system. 

Meanwhile, we are controlling nearly all SAP systems that we have, so it has a three digit number. In this area, no one has any idea of using a different tool for it. The another direction where we hope that we can move into other directions, but without the necessary management, it can't.

The people involved in the initial setup were convinced that they had the right product and absolutely satisfied with the setup in 2001.

I know that it was evaluated against other tools in 2000, but I do not know which ones.

Have a look at following:

• Technical functionality
• Attitude of the vendor
• The way that they are in contact with their customers. 
• Flexibility of the solution.
  

Most important criteria when selecting vendors: Our company wants to have strong partners. Therefore, they change the direction from selecting specific small companies for a specific question or task to have more global partners for big areas, where they can rely on the necessary knowledge in the company in terms of enough people with this knowledge, not only one specialist, and no one else can take over in the case of any problem, holiday, or leaving the company.

The production controls the test environment and test batches. The performance is very good.

Our key feature is that we have different clients for different environments. We can manage all our environments using a transport case as a name of a feature. It is very helpful to have the same setup in each environment.

The new user interface needs improvement. The previous version was good and stable. Now, we have to check the new one before using a web browser. It is not stable.

We have been waiting 11 years for release management, which will be in the next release.

Stability is okay.

The scalability is good because you can add on as many services and processes as you want.

We used the technical support in the beginning, who were easy to work with.

In the last couple of years, there was no need for it.

We had a couple of solutions in place starting from Windows, Unix crontab, and other batch controlling software (like Control-M, Redwood, etc.).

Batches interact with all applications, so the batch structure is more complex and using different tools was not a solution. Therefore, we needed to have one single workflow as a solution for us, and we made the decision to have one tool in place. Then, we did an evaluation, and the winner was CA.

The initial setup was straightforward. With outsourcing, it made it simple.

We have received a lot of time and cost efficiencies from using the product.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: The tool is more important than the vendor.

• Look how comfortable the tool is. 
• How it has performed. 
• The vendor name or costs are just a second point of the evaluation.

We use Workload Automation to control all our processes and the batch control.

We are working with version 10, and need to upgrade to version 12.2.

• The product is clear and very visual. 
  
• We receive feedback right at the moment that we need it. 
• We are able to control and change our processes when necessary.

At the moment, we have clear batches to see workflows to control.

In the next version, I do not know what is coming up for us.

The workflows should be clearer and more expressive. I need this going forward.

We have downtime during every upgrade. In the normal process, it works fine. 

It is scalable.

We are now in extended support. We are now in the change process, so we needed extended support.

When we contact support, we can get through to the right person to receive the correct answers.

The product has helped save, time, money, and resources. It has given us a competitive advantage in our industry. 

Use the product. Support is good and it works fine.

Our customers use it for scheduling.

It performs quite well. It depends on the customer. Some customers do not use it with all the features that the product offers. They only use a small set of what the product can do.

Reliability: You can count on it.

It has saved my customers time, money, resources, and efficiency.

Monitoring is very good.

For power users, it does not work well for them at the moment.

The event monitoring is very good. It has become a great part of the product suite. However, most customers rarely use it.

At the moment, it is working quite well. Version nine's stability was not good. Now, it is stable again.

The scalability is very good.

Mostly, we get a standard answer. Sometimes, the support is not very good.

Maybe it is problem with some customers and the tickets that they are opening, as the tickets are not very well designed. Still, as an experienced user, when I open a ticket, I put in all the needed information. Yet, the support for me is still not great and could be better.

It is straightforward for me. Those new to this business find the initial setup complex. 

It is a complex product, so you can't do the setup with a click.

It is a good product for solution automation.

We use it to automate our business.

While we have had some issues, it is mostly perfect. If it is set up, it is running.

It does its job.

Token-based authentication: Where we do not have to use a password, and can use tokens for authentication in other systems.

Apart from the new UI, it is very stable. The new UI feels unready. It makes your browsers crash.

The scalability is very good. We can scale it however we want. We have seen new add-ons, such as the event machine. There is always something to augment.

You have to improve your systems, but there are no seen limits. 

Sometimes, it is a bit hard get through the first level of support to the second level, then to the endpoint of the solution. Overall, it is a bit tricky.

Our migration from a previous system was not easy. However, when we did a new implementation that was easy.

I do not remember.

I recommend to try the product. Our competitors mostly use this product too.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: Getting things done better.