We performed a comparison between BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench and Endevor based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC, IBM, Broadcom and others in Mainframe Application Development."We can develop in parallel today on ISPF, but it's giving us the advantage of the newer interface into the mainframe programming languages that younger programmers can use and are familiar with, rather than using the ISPF green screen."
"Once we got the configurations and deployment rolled out, it was very stable. I haven't had any major issues with Eclipse or the Topaz Workbench plugins."
"The smart editor helps because it will code-complete for me. I can see code working a lot faster and I'm able to get things coded in less time."
"It helps our staff work by speeding up their documentation process."
"The most valuable feature of Topaz is Xpediter. It's more flexible than Xpediter through MVS."
"From a user perspective, the GUIs make it easier for people to see and interact with files on the mainframe."
"It's a modernized development portal and helps reduce the learning curve for younger people coming in to work on the platform,"
"The most valuable features are stability and ease of use."
"We have been able to replicate entire SDLCs for new clients and have them loaded and ready to use Endevor in as little as one week. This was possible with the use of Endevor variables within the processors, so that a single processor was able to function for multiple systems across the entire SDLC."
"The most valuable feature of Endevor is the software controller."
"In the last year or so, we had a need to start using a CICS web services, and mesh them in with some distributed functions on an enterprise service bus. We put the web services into Endevor and we manage that way now."
"It was an easy install. Since it was all set up, it pretty much runs itself now."
"It's very flexible. A new technology comes along, this can be multiplied to handle the new technology quite easily."
"The source management is excellent."
"It's the audit-level tracking. If something has gone wrong I can go back and figure out what happened, who did it."
"It would be good if the vendors would work together or at least have some collaboration between them, so they would know what would work and what wouldn't work. Right now, the way things are working, they're relying on the customer to make everything work."
"The ability to edit source code that has special characters is limited. The ability to incorporate or convert REXX into macros that are usable under the Topaz software is not there. And the REXX macros that I have developed over 40 years of work are useless, so I have a toolbox I can't use or deploy using the Topaz technology, while I can use it under MVS."
"It often doesn't play well with other plugins in the environment."
"I'm always looking for improvement in things like the documentation, to make things a little bit easier and simpler to understand, a place where people can go to troubleshoot issues."
"It would be nice to have an audit trail to see what mainframe developers are using what."
"It's not as intuitive as it should be. In terms of navigation, there is a large training curve for using it. For a millennial it might be better, if they're used to Eclipse. But coming from a non-Eclipse environment and using Eclipse, though I have experience with Eclipse, it might be cumbersome."
"I'm waiting to see what 19.2 for Topaz looks like, but I have a problem with the JES Explorer right now. It limits you to a certain prefix for job names and there are some groups that have multiple prefixes that they'd like to see all at once in their job names, because of how they work in a group. And they can't see that in the JES Explorer."
"The area for improvement is related to the testing tools that are available for unit testing or acceptance testing. I know they have some out there that we are not licensed for at this time, but it seems like some of the Eclipse tools that are used for other programming languages, they're all just built-in and they're a little more intuitive to the developers. Making those testing tools as intuitive as possible, and as integrated as possible into the workbench, would be really beneficial."
"Interfacing with some change control products that are not CA's, it's a little glitchy on the approvals of changes. It requires special needs for the users for approvals."
"The main challenges are its limited interface and the complexity of the customization."
"Endevor can improve parallel development."
"There should be better integration between CA Endevor Software Change Manager and Zowe."
"It is difficult to find file programs and use a different tool for the setup as the compilation process is all locked up."
"They need to ditch the Eclipse plugin and just make the development environment for Z the standard Eclipse interface."
"Sometimes finding errors and output can be difficult because it spits out so many messages that it is hard to figure out which ones are the ones you need to look at and what flow did it actually take through the processor."
"Needs more audit capability when it comes to changes to settings that are made by administrators, as many of these are done through the panels and are therefore not logged as an action against a configuration item."
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BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench is ranked 1st in Mainframe Application Development while Endevor is ranked 3rd in Mainframe Application Development with 45 reviews. BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench is rated 7.2, while Endevor is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench writes "File editing/browsing and the debugging features help onboard developers who are new to the mainframe environment". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Endevor writes "A highly stable tool for managing mainframe software development projects that require significant expertise". BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench is most compared with IBM Rational Developer for z Systems, Bonita and BMC Compuware Xpediter, whereas Endevor is most compared with BMC Compuware ISPW, OpenText ChangeMan ZMF, CA Harvest Software Change Manager, IBM Rational ClearCase and IBM Engineering Workflow Management.
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