We performed a comparison between OpCon and Rocket Zena based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: OpCon is praised for its versatility, seamless integration, convenient self-service option, and ability to automate manual tasks. Rocket Zena is highly regarded for its user-friendly interface, simplicity, useful diagram feature, Linux configuration compatibility, cross-platform job scheduling, and efficient FTP file transfer capability.
OpCon can improve its web-based interface, Solution Manager, which is not as functional as the desktop interface. Upgrading to newer versions can be complex, and users want a mobile app for accessibility. Rocket Zena lacks visibility into connections between applications, has limitations on the number of components in a process, and has a slow UI loading time. Users also find the UI unintuitive and want a web interface for easier access.
Service and Support: OpCon's customer service has a highly skilled and efficient technical support team that provides prompt and effective solutions. Customers value the support staff's helpfulness and friendliness. Rocket Zena offers excellent support, with knowledgeable and responsive technical assistance. However, obtaining higher-level support may involve some delay.
Ease of Deployment: OpCon's initial setup involves close collaboration with SMA consultants and training, which can be complex. Rocket Zena's setup varies among users, with some finding it easier to understand. However, Zena faces challenges when it comes to integrating with SAP.
Pricing: OpCon is recognized as being pricey and intricate to set up, demanding a learning curve. Nevertheless, it is regarded as a high-quality product that offers good value for the investment. Rocket Zena is seen as cost-efficient and budget-friendly, making it a feasible choice for smaller businesses.
ROI: OpCon has proven to be a valuable investment with significant returns through reduced time and errors, enhanced productivity, and the removal of full-time operators. Rocket Zena offers time savings, improved accuracy, and alleviates stress for engineers.
Comparison Results: OpCon is highly favored over Rocket Zena due to its flexibility, integration capabilities, self-service features, automation capabilities, and reliability. Users appreciate OpCon's graphical user interface, database functionality, and the ability to create a testing environment. OpCon's positive user reviews and its comprehensive features make it the preferred choice.
"The core system is the most valuable part: being able to view the processes that we've never really been able to view as a whole before. That is super-helpful, as is being alerted when issues arise."
"Manual processing has been automated 99 percent by OpCon. With new processes, we give it at least two weeks manual so we can write down the details of how to do the steps, then we automate it. Within a month, it has been automated, then it's no longer a manual process."
"My favorite feature is the dashboard feature, which shows jobs that are running, and completed, any failures, and provides dashboard reporting."
"It is so simplistic that it gives us peace of mind. Before, we had all these processes that were run manually, such as different file transfers and jobs running for our core at certain times. Now, all that stuff is done automatically."
"We recently did a branch acquisition of another bank, though not a full bank. With that, we had to convert all of their ACH transactions. It was a very complicated product that we received from our core provider, Fiserv, for some translation programs. It was very cumbersome to run through the process, convert it out, get output files, etc. Without anyone touching it, I was able to automate the full process from pulling in the files from this other bank, converting everything needed, and posting it to our customer's account 24-hours throughout the day."
"It allows us to organize everything into a process flow throughout the day for our different tasks that we have to run. So, it keeps everything organized. It is easy to monitor and adjust, if we need to."
"The biggest example in which OpCon has improved my organization is that we have to download and process files from the federal reserve several times a day. If we don't do it in a certain timeframe, we can be penalized. It's the fact that we can download these files, process them, get our accounting teams the information they need to work the exceptions that is one of the most important roles."
"It's very scalable. Right now we're barely scratching the surface of what it can do. I've looked at Symitar's instance of OpCon and they're running something like 13,000 jobs a day with all the clients that they have. So it can go from small use cases like ours to enterprise-level."
"I have used other tools with similar capabilities; it's the ease of use."
"From a Linux configuration point of view, Rocket Zena is straightforward. It's fairly easy to set up the server and agents once you know how to do it."
"We haven't had any problems since we installed it. It runs as expected, we haven't had any critical problems. It helps keeps the business running 24/7."
"I like the whole product, but specifically, I like the license part. It's very easy to acquire a license for this product."
"In the latest upgrade, Zena added a web-based client. The more I use it, the more I like it. It's an excellent interface. They do a good job of steadily improving the solution to make it more useful."
"Its FTP feature is very good, as is scheduling any process or task with the Zena client. I have found it to be very helpful. If a task fails, it gives you a prompt."
"You can click Ctrl-G and bring a diagram view. You're able to view in a diagram format. The view that it provides is easy, and you can move to the left, up, or down. You can double-click on a certain process. It'll drill into that process and all of its underlying components. You can double-click on an arrow or a component, and it'll bring up a screen that'll have all the variables that are assigned to that particular piece, as well as the values at run time. So, the diagram feature of it, at least for me, is pretty valuable."
"The most valuable feature is the FTP file transfer."
"More functionality within self-service would be greatly appreciated."
"The products are extremely powerful and capable. Anytime you have such capability, the programming/configuration that goes into making it work can be complicated."
"Upgrading to newer versions remains complex."
"The only downside to OpCon is that its features can be complicated and really must be taught. Most of our users don't have training beyond the free Basic Training that SMA provides, so for fresh eyes, it is kind of difficult to understand some of the language used."
"The one area it needs some help in is the mainframe area because that is not its strength. They support the mainframe but it's not something that they are good at."
"The biggest area where there is room for improvement would be integration with their code. They've got a function for embedded scripts and it would be nice if that worked with a code or versioning management system, like GitLab."
"Usage is a little complex. It's not like you can bring somebody in and they can just use it. They have to be trained... As far as complexity goes, it's right up there."
"What can get complicated is if you're doing anything more than just the built-in jobs. If you're using the more advanced features, troubleshooting becomes extremely complicated."
"The UI is not intuitive, and it would be nice if there was a web interface."
"The scheduling mapping is a little disjointed. There is no wizard-type approach. There are a lot of different things that you have to do in completely different areas. They could probably add the functionality for creating all components of a mapping or an OPA schedule. The component creation could be done collectively rather than through individual components."
"In the web interface, it stacks the tasks across the top, and they accumulate until you close or clean those out. That seems a little cumbersome. You must right-click and close all tabs constantly to keep the console clean and manage your views."
"Rocket Zena is a mainframe-based job scheduler. I would like it to be more open so that we can use it on a distributed platform."
"The documentation has room for improvement."
"One area where it could be improved is communication between the different servers. Sometimes there are processes that have already been completed but we get a status notification that they're still active."
"Another one that is probably a little bit bigger for me is that when there is an issue or there's an error, it writes on a different screen. I have to find the actual process name and go to a different screen to view the alert that got generated. On that screen, everyone's processes, not just the processes of the folks in my department, are thrown. It takes me a while to find the actual error so that I could go in there and look at the alert. It could be because of the way it was set up, but at least for me, it isn't too intuitive."
"In the next release, I would like the user experience to be improved. The user interface should be more appealing to gen-z."
OpCon is ranked 9th in Workload Automation with 56 reviews while Rocket Zena is ranked 12th in Workload Automation with 9 reviews. OpCon is rated 9.2, while Rocket Zena is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of OpCon writes "Gives us the ability to schedule dependent jobs across different mainframes". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Rocket Zena writes "A continuously evolving, stable solution, with responsive support". OpCon is most compared with Control-M, AutoSys Workload Automation, IBM Workload Automation, Automic Workload Automation and UiPath, whereas Rocket Zena is most compared with Control-M, Rocket Zeke, IBM Workload Automation, AutoSys Workload Automation and ActiveBatch by Redwood. See our OpCon vs. Rocket Zena report.
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